G. L. Pease Renaissance

I've smoked enough bowls to now offer my humble opinion on this offering from Pease. I find this product, my first from Pease, to be quite rewarding. As a converted cigar smoker (and mostly aromatic pipe smoker), this product is both rich and well balanced. It may be the product to convert me from aromatics except Frog Morton on the Town of which I'll never stray. Good enough is this product that I must try the other Pease blends. Fully deserving of its current 4 stars. I offer the same.

This is the silkiest, smoothest English I have ever tried. I find this burns incredibly cool in my Don Carlos billiard and is virtually "biteless". It's difficult to avoid overpuffing on this blend due to it's incredible taste and complexity, no doubt due to the wonderful marriage between the variety of Virginias, and Orientals in the Latakia backdrop. This will easily move to the forefront of my rotation and may unseat 965 as my most reached for all-purpose English. Burns cleanly throughout and to a fine white ash. Room Note is much improved as compared to a 965. Highly recommended.

This is simply incredible. This tobacco is everything I was looking for in a smoke. The flavour and body are amazing.

The light was fast and easy. The flame took to the leaf as if they were meant to be together. And after tasting this one, I know that to be true. Th smoke was white and pure. There was a pleasant perfume in the air That complimented the taste nicely.

The tobacco burned well and left me wondering how I would get a hold of enough to last me the year.

I will state my one complaint against Mr. Pease tobacco first - the doggone tin is too small - not that there isn't a full 2 oz, it is too small to pack a pipe over the tin. You end up with tobacco on your desk or lap as you trickle it into the bowl, a real pain. That said, there is nothing else to complain about. The tin aroma is rich in Latakia on first opening, but that mellows and the VAs and Balkan come through after a bit. It expands nicely in the charring light and takes a match very easily. At first, it appears that the wonderful Latakias battle for dominance over the Orientals. Then, a couple puffs later, the Balkan makes an appearance setting the stage for a three frontal assault upon both palate and olfactory senses. Finally, the Viriginas make their presence felt and add a new dimension. These four flavors continue the struggle - each rising and falling in a wonderful complexity that tantalizes with each puff. The smoky room note has wonderful nutty overtones. While I give the battle scene as an image of how the flavors compete for my attention, this isn't a bad thing. Instead, this tension throughout give Renaissance its distinctive charm. Too many times, one flavor dominates a blend to the exclusion of the others. The flavors in this blend compete on equal footing - blended in such a way that all the charms of each of the individual tobaccos take the stage in a dynamic struggle. Only as you smoke it do you understand, they are not fighting one another - each is fighting for your attention - and you give it, willingly, the battle staged in your own mind of which one you find most enticing. In the end, I decided it was a stalemate and packed another bowl for a rematch.

This is the kind of blend that makes me wish I had a more refined palate, and that is about as good of a compliment as I can give a tobacco. Greg Pease has created a wonderfully balanced English blend which is very enjoyable to smoke. Unlike most english blends in which one component invariably dominates another at some point during the bowl, this tobacco is fluid from first light to ash. The virginias, orientals and latakias (cyprian and Syrian) perfectly meld together and play off each other from first light without straying from course. I think William Serad said it best in his P&T review of Renaissance: It's a Symphony of flavor", a "Victorian parlor". I couldn't decribe it any better myself. The funny thing is that when I was originally sent a sample, I was burnt out on English blends (momentarily , of course) and was smoking mostly Virginias and American blends such as Aleister and Templar (also blended by the talented Mr. Pease). Like a shmuck I passed over the sample bag for almost 2 months until a friend asked to try it. His response was so positive that I immediatley smoked a bowl. It has never failed me, whether it's a morning smoke, a late night smoke.... my first or my sixth. This is one tasty English with so many nuances and so much happening at EVERY point in the bowl, it's almost overwhelming when attempting to describe (especially with my unrefined palate). It has been claimed as a masterpiece by many... I wouldn't argue, though I might spell it MASTER PEASE!! If you like english blends you will LOVE Renaissance. Go get some NOW.

After smoking Mephisto, I was eagerly looking forward to trying this GLP blend, especially since many have rated it as even better. After trying several bowls, I understand the praise! This is an excellent, well-blended, and complex full English mixture, well worth the attention it has been getting recently. It is, if not *the* best, than certainly in the top two two or three English tobaccos I've tried up till now. On opening the can, the aroma is surprisingly mild, MUCH more subdued than Mephisto's strong scent. If you really get your nose into the tobacco, however, there is the clear smell of Latakia, very similar to Dunhill 965 to my mind. The leaf itself is a variety of different colors, primarily black and medium brown with some lighter brown thrown in; it is very aesthetically pleasing and varied. It packs fairly well, being mainly medium in cut, and also lights easily. It burns well, too, requiring roughly the average number of relights during the bowl. I chose a Stanwell 1/8 bent billiard for the first go, one that I often use for English blends. In the first third of the bowl, I get the immediate flavor of strong Latakia. This quickly changes, however, into a mix of flavors, melded together perfectly into a delightful, balanced mix. This balance and variation continues throughout the bowl. In the second third, the taste becomes even more complex, shifting constantly and yet always maintaining that overtone of Latakia nuttiness. I get hints of sweetness, nuttiness, spice, and other flavors I can't identify, varying on my palate from puff to puff; this is a very dynamic tobacco. Towards the end of the bowl, the flavor becomes somewhat darker and richer, while the earlier subtlety is still present. It smokes very dry; I was sucking ashes before I realized that the bowl was finished, and there was NO residue moisture. There was some bite towards the end, but that may have been due more to my puffing than to the tobacco itself. Overall, this is a very complex, superbly blended full English tobacco, one which I would recommend to anyone. While not quite as dark in flavor as 965, I believe I'll reach for this one anytime I don't want to fight the nicotine in Dunhill tobacco. Another excellent blend, Mr. Pease!

I have recently opened a tin from 2002 having just lost a tin of Winter's Tale and a tin of Mephisto to rust...

The smell upon opening the tin is all understated elegance. Not an overwhelming wave of latakia, just the odour of nice, subtle English blend (btw, can someone tell the -- new -- folks at c&d that an English blend does not contain Burley? Thanks.)

The tobacco was mercifully still intact -- no hidden rust spots this time around. It was springy and only very few of the strands had developed something resembling those tell-tale crystals.... More like a powder really, As soon as I lit it, the smoke felt incredibly silky, smooth -- its hard not to sound like a commercial here! It is odd, the va's must have been the cause of this enveloping, caressing smoke that if anything, made me think of wine. Good wine. Or the Turkish? I don't know.... And that's what was odd -- but nice -- all the elements came together to give me an extraordinary and yet refined smoking experience. So Renaissance is more than the whole of its parts, the sign of a successful blend to be sure. Lets also add that age -- my tin was about 14 years old when I opened it -- played a non negligible role in the marvelous time I had smoking this tobacco. I would say that overall, Greg's English blend are meant to age (setting aside his burley and Kentucky df stuff and later newish creations, which I don't smoke anyways) and after 10 years they really come into their own. So that's it: I am now on the market for some of his masterpieces with at least 12 years on them! (It will be cheaper than cigars at any rate!). Summary: Renaissance is highly recommended.

At nearly 13 years, the creamy Orientals are still dominate. The Latakia is still a stong undernote. A fairly well-balanced mixture; while a shame it is no longer in production, not so fantastic I would seek it out on the secondary market. Stonger fans of Oriental with solid but lesser Latakia might consider it though. If this had a 5 star system, this would be a solid 4, after some debate I decided to go with 3 rather than 4 out of 4.

The 2002 tin I obtained was sealed tight, but the tobacco was somewhat dry and burned hot. The latakia has an interesting creaminess versus a smokiness found in my favorite English blends. I can see how you would miss this once you had become accustomed to it. I will probably try to rehydrate it, but it seems out of balance. A fallen chandelier found in an old mansion.