McClelland Grey Havens

Well, here's something new--a McClelland that doesn't pass muster. Without going into much detail, let me just say that it didn't have much in the flavor department. It struck me as kind of bland. It needed a little more punch to make it palatable. A real disappointment.

There are good quality tobaccos in this. It could have been a good Burley/VA Per blend. Unfortunately, the strong topping is really obnoxious. What a waste.

Grey Havens is an acceptable mild aromatic. Its blend of burley, VA, and a smidgen of perique is complex enough to interesting throughout the duration of the smoke.

The cut is appropriate - a combination of cube-cut burley and VA ribbon. It is easy to fill and pack, and requires no preparation.

The topping seems to be of a vanilla/fruit variety, is applied with a restrained hand, and does not detract from the base tobaccos. The room note is pleasant without being cloying.

This tobacco will smoke wet and hot. A meerschaum may be the best bet for this weed, as it will alleviate a great deal of the moisture problem. This blend also has a tendancy to nip at the tongue if pushed.

Grey Havens receives decent marks from me as a light aromatic with good tobacco flavor and complexity. However, its tendancy to be "bitey" keeps it from earning a top score.

Update: This is another tobacco that I grew very weary of as time went by. Its mildness grew increasingly annoying, as smoking this blend became too much work for too little satisfaction. The bitey problem never went away, either, further compounding my dissatisfaction. Previous rating: 3 stars, now 1.

I normally smoke VAs but gave this one a try based on my success with other McClelland blends. The tin aroma did not have the distictively vinegar smell of some of their other blends and bordered on pleasant. I found it easy to pack which resulted in an even burn rate without any bite. I sensed and enjoyed the burley and overall taste but could not distingiush their added 'fragrance'. The downfall was the condensation in the bowl. Although moister than I prefer from the tin, even after several days of air drying, I still developed soup in ~ the bottom 1/4 of the bowls. Full bents and varying bowl sizes did not solve my problem. For this reason alone, what might have been an enjoyable tobacco will not be tried again.

I did not enjoy this tobacco at all. The light is nutty, which quickly transitions into a briny pepper and toasted wheat. Not a fan of the briny pepper part.

01-19-2005 Buying an (what is for me) expensive tin of premium has become a crap shoot. All too often I end up kicking myself for laying out $8-10 for a disappointment.

That was the case with Grey Havens. I initially could taste nothing. I began drawing harder, attempting to capture what taste was there and the bowl and my mouth got a little hotter than I like.

I am going to put it up for a month and come back to it. For now, it has shown itself to be a bland, thin, vaporous thing. The "room note" was OK, but that is about it.

My own efforts have proven more satisying. I mixed a pouch of Revelation that had only a couple pipe fulls missing and an equal amount of MC 5100, added a measured teaspoon of MC blending Latakia and a measured tablespoon of MC blending Perique. I mixed it, let it sit overnight and on the way home tonight had a smoke that was much more satisfying that Grey Havens.

Just a hint of smokiness, just a hint of Perique and the 5100 sweetened and rounded out the Revelation. And it didn't cost me almost $9.00. Yes, I can be a tighwad. And sometimes it pays off.

In description it sounds interesting and like a real winner, but after opening the tin and smoking a bowl, this is amoung the group of really bad McClelland products. A base of broad rough-cut burley with some black stoved/cavendished(?) broken cake and supposedly some perique which I can't detect. The smell of the tin suggests that it was heavily flavored with Hershey's chocolate syrup. A rather overly flavored product that does'nt reflect it's description on the tin. It would have been better if it was produced with a restraint on the flavoring to just barely case the white burely along with a noticable amount of perique. Or maybe the heavy flavoring is masking it. In the final analysis a monochromatic aromatic without refinement.

-Not recommended

This is very flat and thin. I smoked one bowl and got rid of the rest. No redeeming qualities, even the lable on the tin is mundane.

Hot, flat and 'blah'.

November-2003. Grey Havens.This is very strange to me as it taste as though I've dropped my pipe & the tobacco fell out in the dirt.Then I've scooped it up 'dirt & all' repacked my pipe & lit it anyway.The taste being very much like earthy soil,so much so,that I wan't to empty out the pipe & start again.Could only detect the Virginia,near the last few puff's.Tried 4 bowl's just to be fair.But no improvement.