Mac Baren Vanilla Cream Flake

This tobacco seemed like a great idea. I imagined a predominantly Virginia Flake, with possibly a hint of cavendish and vanilla. What I recieved was mostly full-fledged cavendish with some fleeting moments of Virginia and vanilla. This tobacco is very smokable in that it was easy, cool burning, did not goop the pipe or have a chemical taste... but that's because it doesn't HAVE a taste. It is sooo boring! Now I'm sure cavendish has its place; I just can't figure out what that is. It is tastless. It is like drinking Bud Light instead of real beer. I guess people want to smoke a pipe but don't want to taste anything. To top it off, my wife couldn't even smell a roomnote... and I was sitting right next to her. You might as well be smoking CBW. At least then you could please those around you if not yourself. Not recommended. Buy something with more substance.

I prefer Dan's Blue Note if we're talking aromatics, but this Vanilla Flake seems to have it's fair share of followers so I gave it a shot. I'm a novice pipe smoker but here is what I've found... the first bowl of it burned my tongue something fierce. That was obviously due to user error. Well, user error and overly moist tobacco. This stuff needs to air dry for at least 30 min before smoking for best results. It really needs to dry up a bit to take the bite off. If dried properly and packed/smoked properly, this is a fine tobacco. Pleasant smell, smooth and sweet taste, but not the worlds best by any means. Try it if you like aromatics, you might dig it. Just don't say I didn't warn ya about the bite. This is a fussy tobacco, but if you can tame it, then good on you.

The flakes were brittle and crumbly. I tried to prepare it in various ways, rubbed out, stacked, folded and cut into small pieces. They were all the same. A hint of vanilla taste and a healthy shot of tongue bite. If you sipped the smoke out of your pipe you would spend most of the time relighting your bowl. A real disappointment,

First it could be good to know my preferences. Otherwise my review would be quite useless. I'm an aromatic smoker but never really liked the European style aromatics. In all cases I think they are quite poor in flavor and rich in tongue bite. I had tried blends from Peterson, Rattray's, Ashton, Solani, Sam Gamwith and Macbaren and thought I just had to learn to pick up the taste. Pretty much gave up. And then I tested some American style aromatics and boy the difference. Rich round flavors and a mellow smoke. Favorites are 1-Q and and also from Lane, Dark Red.

So yesterday I thought I should try my first European vanilla tobacco, hopeful that it was the vanilla that I just had an easier time picking up the flavor from. But same here. Tongue bite and no actual taste of vanilla. I think all European aromatics pretty much have the same "non taste" regardless the flavoring. Solani Mystery X tastes the same as Connoisseur's Choice. And that one in return reminds me of Ashton Guilty Pleasure and so on.

So if you have the same experience as me... No need to try this one. If I'm gonna buy a tobacco from European manufacturers I'll to stick to an occasional "va/per cavendish" tobacco. Like Marlin Flake or Brown Sugar Flake (although that one has oriental instead of perique).

Ugh!! Get it away from me. Quickly.

Hot, dry, cloying and so unbearably sweet that you cannot even get a hint of tobacco. The initial plume that came out of the bowl on lighting stung my nostrils, my initial draw stung my whole palate for about 5 seconds, and the smoke was a rancid cloud of bubblegum-inspired hot mess.

Nothing redeeming about this. Halfway through the bowl I pitched the hot-mess into the ashtray, and picked up the tin and deep-sixed it into the trash.

Avoid.

I have now smoked several Mac Baren offerings and will not review them any further since they are extremely not to my liking. If interested in my thoughts about their line of tobaccos then just see my review on Burley London, it pretty much sums up this vapid weed give or take a slight aromatic difference (vanilla, cherry etc...).

ouch!!! this stuff BITES!! and but quick!! strong, spicy, sour, hot, biting and unklike what i have come to expect from the house of MacBaren. A disappointment all around. The vanilla is indeed there. The tin is very neat, as a consolation. It will be nice to keep after this nicotinic rat-poison is smoked or relegated to an old shoebox. Sorry to have to be so negative regarding a MacBaren offering. :

i liked the planta danish black vanilla, for this type of thing

This time my Mac Baren flame thrower came with a vanilla kicker...pass

I bought this tin, last morning as I was wandring along the streets of Stockholm. I longed for a great aromatic, to beginn the day in a extraordinary fashion, so I went in the tobaccoshop of the block. But to my bare disappointment, I was neither amused nor intrieged by its rather repulsive smell. On the other hand, the taste was entirely different. Vanilla embraced my tounge by the second bowl and I feel as if I was in elysium, BUT that feeling disappered as s quick as it appered. What I'm trying to say is that, Vanilla cream can be awsume but most of the time, it's even more flat and boring than Borkum Riff (no, I think I exaggurated but you get my point).