Peterson University Flake

If you've read my other reviews, you may have noticed I love flake tobaccos. And this is no exception to that rule.

You'll open up this tin and find a relatively dark tobacco with smatterings of beige to light brown specs. And you may even take notice of a berry (guess it's actually plum) undertone. The flakes are cut very cleanly similar to Solani's ABF tin presentation (in relation to the cut).

Like most flakes they retain moisture very well so it would be a good idea to let this dry out for at least 20 minutes if not more. Now, I see both sides of the argument/preference. And that is; Do I do a roll and stuff my flake? Or rub out my flake? I've come to realize for my smoking tastes I usually keep it to a case by case (or flake by flake basis). Maybe it's the flavoring that has been added but I find this does not burn as well when rolled and stuffed. If you do decide to do that be careful not to tamp too often because it might pack too tightly and become difficult to tamp further. So for this flake I typically rub it out, which also helps with drying it out.

Now, Tobacco strength really is a relative concept. Some may consider this weak (and rightfully so when compared to so many other KO blends, and others may be floored by the vitamin N in this) so I think Medium to Strong is the best option for this. If you've found this website, you probably know your limits so choose accordingly. Now for the person who is getting coming from Aromatic style blends, this can be very strong. Not necessarily as strong as the Irish Flake, but competent in its own right. I think it would be smart to eat something before you smoke this as the vitamin N is not lacking. I would also recommend having a drink handy for two reasons, 1. The nicotine might make knock you back a little and 2. The burleys in this blend can be quite strong. It definitely has that typically "Burley kick" that you hear about and the drink may help ease the feeling in your mouth/throat.

I really enjoyed the flavoring in this. It's not always present in every puff but when it does come into play, it works very well with the Burley and VA dichotomy. I think the plum (I think it's closes to a blueberry but tomato tomato 😉 also helps the room note as it's nice than a typical VaBur stink haha.

I really enjoyed this tobacco and will usually keep some tins of this readily at hand. The Vitamin N doesn't bother me but I don't think I could make this an all day smoke because of said burley kick. I typically smoke this in my Peterson Donegal Rocky with the p-lip because I feel it helps alleviate some of the bite/irritation. If you're looking to test the waters of stronger tobaccos with a nice flavor, I think this would be a good starting point.

Finally tried this. I've been putting it off. But, after getting hit REALLY hard by Irish Flake lately I wanted to try what is billed as a lighter version. Lighter is right. You'll be disappointed if you are looking for deep tobacco with lots of variations. This is standard and traditional VA and Burley with a light casing of Plum just as the ingredients/marketing and reviews state.

With that said. I found this blend really tasty and a great add to my rotation. It does have a good does of Nicotine by the time I got to the bottom I was feeling it, but it's much lighter than Irish Flake. It's sweet and tasty, light and refreshing, smooth slow burning smoke. No dottle at the end, burned clean. Taste like it smells in the tin.

I let a flake dry about 4 hours and did a fold and stuff in my thick walled 309 Peterson Standard. The Va Burley combo works great together and you get the traditional tobacco taste and the fruity casing comes in and out but stays with you throughout. It also has a very pleasant aroma as the Plum revels itself there are well. Great blend. I have no complaints. I would buy this again. Great standard blend for a everyday smoke if desired. Recommended.

This review is from a non-aged tin. I plan to buy more and age it.

University Flake was, for me, a study in "halves". The first half of each bowl showed off the berry topping. Half of the time I moderately enjoyed this flavor and half the time it was annoying. I could easily do without it.

The second half of each bowl burned away the topping and the smoke was better off for it. The burley nuttiness and the light VA sweetness took over - or maybe the sweetness was the last remnants of the flavoring. Either way, the tobacco was tasty, full-bodied and satisfying once I got past the first half of the bowl. The tobaccos used were of obviously high quality and I'm not sure why they added the berry flavoring. I'd like to try it uncased. Perhaps some aging will settle it down. Still, this is recommended.

This is a great VaBur flake with a mild fruit topping. The description says plum, and I will not argue with that, but it presents as "fruit" to me. This is a smooth and nicely balanced fairly "full" VaBur. The Virginias are slightly sweet and very smooth with some nutty burley to give it some depth. I don't get any Virginia citrus, but that may contribute to the plum flavor.

I did not get much complexity, but it is a solid smoke, and one I could smoke a lot of were it not for the price. At $8 for 50 g, this is about $72 a pound.

This is easy to recommend. If the description sounds appealing, you probably owe it to yourself to try a tin.

A fairly burley-centric Vabur with just enough berry topping to lift the underlying Virginias and keep the burleys from growing monotonous. Impressively, the topping manages to be both crucial to the blend's character, yet subtle and unobtrusive - the overwhelming impression is of those earthy burleys set in relief by the tart Va sweetness. The older tin description lists Kentucky in the ingredients, and although it's no longer specified there's probably a touch of woody dark-fired in here. Definite nicotine kick. Inclined to be a bit rough around the edges, but good, flavorsome stuff nonetheless. For me, it's the superior of Peterson's two flakes.

In the tin a nice nutty smell from the Burley. Rubbed it out and produced a pleasant smell. On first light, a sweety berry taste was notable. Very pleasant tobacco. Drink a coffee with this blend as it is a relatively strong blend. Burley is clear but in a good balanced way. Further down the bowl, the sweetness of the berry / plum stayed with me.

Ever since I found out that after transferring Peterson tobacco production to Orlik/STG facilities the crafty and sneaky Germans from Kohlhase & Kopp managed to preserve recipes of almost all Peterson tobacco products and start producing them under new names in the Rattray line I could not stop thinking about to test them with originals and compare. Today's hero is Peterson University Flake which I got in three versions: the 2010 Kohlhase & Kopp square tin (hereinafter UF K&K), its clone, the Rattray Wallace Flake of 2022 (hereinafter WF), and the August 2021 University Flake by Scandinavian Tobacco Group (hereinafter UF STG).

Appearance: on the whole, all the tobaccos are similar to each other, presenting a wonderfully well-cut flake of several Virginias of various treatments - and Burley. Only the UF STG can be faulted, with its slightly darker shade giving off a higher moisture content. Alas, the UF STG has the touch has an obvious presence of glycerine and propylene glycol, which cannot be said about the other two tobaccos. UF K&K also dried a little during storage, the flake didn't feel so dense, but still retained its shape. Overall all three left a good impression, although UF STG would need some time to dry out.

Flavor: this is where the first differences begin. I'll try to describe the difference in aroma.

UF K&K: it smells like a good plum biscuit lying on a wooden cutting plate - each note of flavor is woven into the overall bouquet, all together they create an amazing harmony, it literally wants to be eaten. It's very difficult to isolate the nuances of the aroma, although of course the plum gently prevails, creating a general background supported by notes of biscuit dough with an almost subtle touch of vanilla and cinnamon. As for the burley, it hardly shows itself, being present only in the form of soft woody and nutty notes in the background.

WF: reminiscent of Tyrolean plum cake - it cannot boast of such harmony in flavor, however, all the notes of the aroma, though not constituting a whole, are perceived quite appropriately and with the right intensity. Plum, of course, dominates, somewhat detached from the rest of the bouquet. Also, the bread notes have a slightly different quality here, not so soft and airy, dry a littlle, and the vanilla and cinnamon are barely perceptible. The woody-walnut notes of burley, as slightly detached as with the more mature tobacco, but still more noticeable. Perhaps over time, the overall flavor of WF could compete with the 12-year-old original, becoming softer and more solid. But for a fresh tin, and also being a “copy”, it's great.

UF STG: it's a batch of grandma's plum jam, which you stolen with an old wooden spoon straight from a jar open for a pie, for which, alas, the dough hasn't even been kneaded yet. The plum flavor is brighter, more pungent, and I also managed to smell a slight note of molasses. Woody notes of burley are also more noticeable, and what's more, a walnut note permeates the overall flavor as well. And, the other side, Virginia bread notes, alas, got pokey - they are barely noticeable in the flavor to favor of a brighter plum aroma and burley notes. Moreover, rubbing the tobacco in my hands, I managed to catch a slight scent of hay, but the bread note was equally subtle and unnoticeable.

Taste: there are differences in this aspect as well.

UF K&K: Initially a little drier in taste than expected from such a flavor, the tobacco quickly gains sweetness and after a couple of minutes is fully consistent with its aroma. Calm biscuit notes framed with plum are in a harmonious balance, setting the base. The woody and nutty tones of burley barely support them, complemented by a very slight hint of cinnamon, the resemblance to which is enhanced by the fact that I felt tobacco as a little tongue-twisting. However, the overall taste of the blend is absolutely mild, without any roughness. As you smoke, the burley adds nuttiness, catching up with the woody notes in intensity, but doesn't step out of the shadow of the main, plum biscuit flavor. The strange thing (for me) is that burley doesn't bother me at all in this blend, remaining a minor player but being nonetheless highly noticeable. What's interesting: whichever packing I tried, the tobacco taste remained quiet without getting brighter. The tobacco smokes cool, dry and slow, burning out into a dusty light grey ash. I didn't want to take any risk, so I only stuffed one flake into the pipe, but the tobacco still seemed stronger than average to me. Separately, I can say that in both bent and straight forms of pipe the tobacco has almost the same taste. The aftertaste is fruity and woody, a little astringent, soft, but quite persistent.

WF: Amazingly, the taste of the tobacco is almost entirely consistent with its flavor. Slightly buttery notes of sweetly sandy pastry, a slightly bright but still very mild plum flavor, a barely noticeable presence of cinnamon and only the merest of woody and nutty notes in the background. As you smoke, the woody and nutty notes increase slightly in flavor, leaving the Virginia in the foreground, along with the plum filling. The tobacco taste is slightly sweeter than the original. I've smoked WF both whole and broken flake, and I have to say it's a bit brighter in the broken form, which makes sense. The tobacco smokes cool, dry and slow (and in the case of whole flake - very slow), burning to a perfect ash of light grey. It is reasonably tolerable for a beginner, although if smoked too hot, the plum will be the first to disappear. Also worth considering is the fact that the strength of WF is slightly above average - having puffed a plate and a half into the pipe, I felt a nicotine hit at the end, soft and slight, but perceptible. The tobacco, just like the original, tastes pretty much the same in both straight pipes and bents. Also, its aftertaste is also pretty much the same as the original - fruity-woody, slightly astringent, soft and quite persistent.

UF STG: The woody and nutty notes of burley are more prominent in the taste of this tobacco than the earlier versions, while the sweetness is much less noticeable. The taste is considerably simpler and more reminiscent of the usual Virginia-Burley blend, as the plum tones become imperceptible in the middle of the pipe, being replaced by herbal and - finally! - bread-like Virginia notes. Besides, the tobacco itself is much more demanding to the temp of smoking at the beginning of the pipe, and has a certain 'roughness' in taste, though becoming softer towards the middle of the pipe. The tobacco smokes a little hotter, burning into a grey ash. The strength of the tobacco is above average, as in the previous two variants, and the taste is unchanged from pipe to pipe as well.

The smoke from UF K&K and WF has almost the same flavor. Smoking the tobacco creates a luxurious ambience in the room - slightly sweet, with an aroma of wood and all the same plum. Fairly persistent but loose. The smoke from UF STG has a more pronounced woody flavor with a hint of ash. It's hard to call it luxurious, but it's not irritating.

What's the bottom line? Next, as always, solely my opinion. First of all, all the assurances that Kohlhase & Kopp has done some kind of 'tweaking' of the recipe that came into his hands, I would call untenable. Yes, the fresh Wallace Flake has slightly different taste and aroma, but these nuances are so insignificant that I am pretty sure that if I had a tin of 7 years aged Rattray Wallace Flake in my hands, I would not be able to tell which tobacco is which in a blind test - although I know University Flake pretty well. Of course, the 12 year aged version of University Flake by Kohlhase & Kopp looks more advantageous in our comparison. But it is no longer in production, although you may come across old stocks from time to time on the secondary market. If you come across such a tin - touch a legend, it's worth it. As for the two versions remaining on the market, Wallace Flake is much more interesting than the current University Flake by STG, which has kept its name, but has lost the charm of the original recipe. All indications are that the composition of the current version definitely has been changed to somewhat aside from the original, and that has clearly not come in its favor. As for Wallace Flake, if the opportunity arises, I'll stock up on a tin or two to open them after ten years aging and see if the aged Wallce Flake can resemble the original. Still, I mark UF 3 stars total, respecting the old one, which is absolutely marvellous, at 4 and new one at 2.5.

I love this flake. For once I can taste the plum topping and it is delicious. I liken the flavor of this to "toasted plum" This is the first non-lakeland flake that I will finish the tin in two weeks and quickly order more. If you have a couple tins lying around and you know your not going to finish them, Ill trade you my tin of Nightcap on the spot.

As I'm tripping along at my local store I noticed this blend which I had been eyeing for some time now online but just wasn't sure I should pull the trigger on it. As I've gotten more experience with Virginia - Burley blends like Erinmore Flake, St Bruno and other Burley flakes I thought it looked inviting.

The tin is very plain, but when you open up you get around 12 well sliced wide flakes. They are medium brown in colour, and come pretty moist. The smell from the tin is soft, sweet in a Virginia sort of way, plummy, citrusy, faintly nutty, and slightly chocolaty. I tried both cube cutting and the fold and stuff method and the F&S method worked best for me. I found that folding and stuffing and then leaving my pipe out overnight yielded the best results for me. Getting it lit was not a problem, but it does need a few relights.

On to taste. There is an obvious plummy note to this blend, but it's reminiscent to the plummy character of Perique. It isn't too sweet, and it really helps some of the Burley shine. The Burley is nice and woody, nutty, and chocolaty. The Virginias hide a little in the background but I do taste their sweetness and hay. I like how the topping doesn't completely cover the smoke.

The taste I give a medium, it's an average mouth feel and it is nice and mellow at the same time. The strength is also a medium I can tell there is nicotine in this but Lady N isn't holding me in my chair. This burns magnificently slow, and makes for a really relaxing smoke without too much fuss. The snow is pretty cool too. As for the room note, I think it smells pretty sweet, but since it does contain Burley you make detect some "cigarette-ishness". A very pleasant smoke that I would happily buy again from my local smoke shop.