Peter Stokkebye Natural (No.1)

The Virginia and gold cavendish are grassy sweet with some honey and citrus notes. The burley is a minor player and is very slightly nutty. The blend is much sweeter in the first half of the bowl. There's a floralness from the topping that gains strength as you go along, and by the time you get to the last third of the bowl, it really sublimates the others flavors. Sour notes seem to gather strength then, too, and the smoke becomes unpleasantly sour and acrid. Has a light nic-hit. May burn warm if puffed fast, but avoids biting you. Burns fairly cool and dry with very little moisture left in the bowl, but the finish and after taste is a turn off. Needs an average number of relights. An all day smoke. I'd give three stars for the first half of the bowl, one for the latter.

-JimInks

At first I thought this was just a so-so blend, and had no real intentions of re-ordering it. I tried it with different pipes in the afternoon and evening, and it just didn't do anything for me.

Then I tried it in a corncob with a cup of plain black coffee early one Saturday morning. Bingo! This is now my morning ritual: Corncob full of Stokkebye and a mug of black coffee. (A basic MM Legend on weekdays during my short commute to work, and a bigger Great Dane Egg on the weekend). It has a wonderfully simple light Virginia flavor to it, with just a hint of Burley, and a sweet note that I can only describe as baker's sugar. The room note is quite nice, and makes me think of a freshly baked glazed breakfast pastry.

I smoke at least three pipes during a weekday and at least five pipes on Saturday and Sunday, and I always like to start off light and end up with an English/Balkan or a VaPer for my final pipe of the day. Stokkebye Natural is my favorite morning pipe, and it primes me for the fuller blends thast I prefer as the day progresses. I pack it light, sip it, and have never had any tongue bite.

Is it a complicate blend? No, but I don't want complicated in the moning. I just want a pleasant pipe and cup of coffee (or so) to get me going, and Stokkebye Natural excells at this. This is not a belnd that you can puff on like a chimeny and expect to send you rocketting into the stratosphere - it's a quiet and gentle morning stroll, and I highly recommend it to anybody who prefers peace and quiet in the morning.

Peter Stokkebye - Natural (No.1).

The mixture's made of quite delicate ribbons, they're roughly a shag in cut. It's a blend of light and medium browns, and good in the moisture department.

I can't figure why this has the title Natural, it's far from tasting natural. The smoke has a sweet, fruitiness, to it, and it wouldn't be a bad smoke, if it weren't for a perfume-like/bitter top note. The main tobacco characteristic is a sweet Virginia one, I get hardly any Burley, to speak of. The burn's quite hot, and it bites me a lot.

Nicotine: mild. Room-note: pleasant to tolerable.

A blend I won't revisit. One star:

Not recommended.

This is an aromatic. Pouch note is somewhere in the cassis family, plum or raspberry perhaps. The smoke itself is very sweet.

A tad harsh on the palate, I found it 'coated' my mouth, leading me to think a fair dollop of PG is in this.

An inexpensive bulk alternative to the Danish type aromatics, it will surely win friends among the aro crowd. Not me, I'm afraid, and I feel cross that I was mislead by the name of this tobacco, because 'natural' it most certainly is not, and by the lack of reviews indicating what this tobacco really is.

A weak 2 stars.

I am with DaSquid on this one almost across the board. When I first opened the pound I bought and loaded up a briar billiard I thought, "Eh...so-so". I smoke mainly English/Latakia blends with some VaPers as morning smokes usually and hence I was not too surprised. I split my pound into two Mason jars and put them up for two years (in other words, forgot about it).

When I ran out of my normal VaPer morning blend I dug around, found these jars and, in a MM cob along with coffee, found a gem. It had mellowed into a very pleasant smoke indeed. Nothing fancy but a smoke which ends with a smile on my face and anticipation for another bowl at evening's end (to finish a day of heavy blends).

If it's cased at all it is only a small amount of sugar. No PG aftertaste either, which is a huge plus. It deserves a higher rating, a sleeper.

I disliked this one immediately. It tasted like soap to me. Smell reminded me of some kind of plastic, or scented candles. I did not smoke enough of it to find out, but although the taste is very mild, it felt as though it was going to bite me.

Did not finish bowl one.

UPDATE: I tried again, with more perseverance. The last half of the bowl was not as noxious as the top. I could actually taste a little tobacco flavor. I think I am going to try to salvage the stuff by heating it in the oven. Maybe some of the flavoring will boil off.

I am amused that most of the reviews of this blend talk about it being mild, but then state that it is a tongue burner. I find it to be the opposite. I think it would be a great all day blend as it does not tongue bite, it does not over whelm the senses, it has a very good VA flavor with some fullness added to it by the burley the farther one smokes it down the bowl. I ordered some of this hoping it would be similiar to Amphora Brown, of which I smoked for the best part of 20 years before it stopped being available in the US. It is is that genre, very Danish, and I find it lights up well, stays lit, and burns down to a nice fine grey ash with just a little dottle in the bottom of the pipe. It has a very nice room note. It comes as a ribbon cut in a uniform brown color, the pouch aroma is very sweet and to me the topping on it suggests honey. Pack it loose and it is gentle as a lamb, I can smoke several bowls in succession, but pack it tight and it can get a little bitey, but that is because one then tends to over puff to make it stay lit. But sips properly, it is similiar to smoking a light VA blend, and a nice one at that. For the price of this blend, it is a real bargain and it does make a nice mixer with other blends. I feel this blend is one of the underappreciated ones out there as it is not a true VA smoke yet it is not an aromatic either, kind of a crossover. I say try it and smoke it properly and find out for yourself how enjoyable this blend is. I recommend it and am flying through a 4 oz bag of this in record time. I will buy more of this blend for those days I want something VA sweet but not complicated.

Revised review 2021-01-21: I've revisited this after not smoking it for quite awhile. I'm dropping it to one star. It's got a strawberries & cream topping that I don't enjoy. I remember it as being relatively unflavored. I wonder if the recipes were changed after Eric Stokkebye left to seek other opportunities in 2012?

Original review 2006-06-21: Though this is a rather plain Viginia & Burley mix, in the Danish style, I find myself returning to it quite often. It's very similar to Mac Baren's Mixture (aka Scottish Mixture), though the Stokkebye is a bit less tangy. It's probably been sweetened a bit, but not too much. This is one of my favorites.

I second Eulenberg's impressions of this tobacco. I tried Pete's Natural just a month or so ago and had a lot of trouble tasting anything other than the mildest of Virginia sweetness.

If light and mild tastes good to you, then so will this. As for me, I prefer something with a little more flavor.

Like Baren's Navy Flake. Like a tea biscuit. Pleasant, I should think, for those who prefer the lightest, non-aromatic, quality compositions.