Rattray Black Virginia

10/07/2005 As a major consumer of Rattray's fine pipe tobaccos, I was let down by this one. First I must say I have not been a lover of Stoved Virginias. They may be too subtle for my less-experienced palate. I will follow the advice of some of the other esteemed reviewers and dry the heck out of this tobacco. Otherwise it may take me a number of years to work my way through the 100 gram tin. Will update after the drying-testing process is completed. 02/08/2006: I have smoked eight of the eighteen blends listed in this section and this is the only disappointment of the lot.

This stuff bites my tongue regardless of the moisture level in the tobacco. The taste is flat, somewhat spicy for such a one dimensional virginia (is there some flavoring added?)and I can't get past the bitiness...

With all the good va's on the market (stoved or not) I sure can't recommend this one.

If you like the sweetness of a straight (red) VA or the tanginess of a stoved VA you should give this one a whirl.

There's a great tin aroma reminding me of nothing other than raisins, slightly sticky to the touch and coal black. It looks almost intimidating, but fear not, for this is a VA of little strength and full flavor.

I lay it out on a paper towel for at lest an hour or two before loading the pipe (as this comes quite wet in the can) until the leaves are almost crunchy. Bottom of the bowl gets gravity fed and as the bowl fills, I pack it tighter and tighter to the top. Light it up and get ready for a great smoke. Two cautions: 1) if not allowed to dry considerably, this blend will eat a package of pipe cleaners and not stay lit; 2) if you puff too fast, you'll get a mouth full of flavorless steam and scorch your tounge. (I did each of these once.)

Dry it, puff slowly, enjoy.

A surprisingly mild dark Virginia. Not a very sweet Va, it never exhibited the ?grassy sweet? taste that some Va?s do. BV burns evenly and dry. A very mild flavor.

I personally like the grassy sweet taste in my Va smokes. This one left me wanting.

Like WxGuy said above, this is one blend from Rattrays that I found to be very inconsistent. My tins have all been extremely wet when opening and take a long while to dry out- compared to other reviewers saying their tins were dry from the start.

An almost all black short ribbon cut, it loads easily and lights hard due to the moisture. If I can, I plan ahead and fill a bowl a few hours before smoking and that usually helps. The tin aroma is mild but very much like raisins. The flavor is sweet and somewhat musty and moisture builds up right from the get-go.

You gotta like these black Virginias to like this stuff. It's not bad, but nothing exceptional. If I were to buy and smoke this type of tobacco all the time, I'd go with McC 2035 in bulk. They all taste the same to me...

As amply noted by others, Black Virginia is an aptly named tobacco, being almost jet black. My tin arrived a bit dryer than other Rattray's blends, with what I can best describe as little black elongated semi-flat nuggets, an intriguing consistency. The tin aroma is not very strong, but about what one would expect, a slight fruitiness, but not at all tart or citrusy.

I generally prefer my VAs with perique, or in flake form (burns cooler), so this one is a bit of an outlier for my tastes, and I do not have a good experiential database for comparison purposes.. Being a bit on the drier side, BV is relatively easy to light and holds the burn well. I did find a tendency to bite, so this is one to go slow on. Also, the natural sugariness of the VAs is best appreciated at cooler burning temperatures, and this has a natural sweetness that deserves to be appreciated. The lack of tanginess in this blend is fine by me. (Since other reviewers comment on the tanginess, makes one wonder how consistent the product is. Mine had no tang at all) I find BV to be a good straight-up VA, not complex or layered, just plain VA. I guess that it does not hold my attention very well- and for some occasions that is just fine. In its niche it is one of the better blends.

Upon opening this tobacco i found very little aroma at all, and the tobacco was jet black mostly, with a little brown here and there. The tobacco was definately dry for rattrays.

THe tobacco packed and lit easily, and produced a nice grey ash. the initial flavors were the musty sweet flavor of virginias, wit a little sweetness too boot, bu they quicky faded and it became a hot and boring smoke. No matter how slow i puffed or if i put it down and relighted it just attacked my tounge like an agitated viper. IF you try this one, try a coencob or a clay pipe to keep it cool.

This is the first tobacco i tried that i really did not like at all, oh well there are alot of other fish in the sea.

It really is dead black, quite sweet in aroma, smelling like raisins more than tobacco. A bit moist, and hard to light, even after drying it. The flavor is not as full as Dark Fragrant to my taste, so I will stick to DF in the future.

This is the type of Virginia tobacco that I really enjoy: dark, flavorful, and sweet. It compares nicely to Dark Star by McClelland, though DS is more complex and flavorful. With a bit of caution to avoid tongue bite, the only problem I notice is some moisture while smoking. The smell in the tin is sweet and "dark", not really musty at all. The leaf is very dark, a shiny jet black with a small amount of dark brown providing visual contrast. The cut is varying, short to medium with several unrubbed chunks mixed in. It is a dry tobacco, somewhere between GL Pease and Cornell & Diehl on the moisture scale. It packs very easily and lights fairly well, burning with an average number of relights needed once lit. In the first third of the bowl, the taste is sweet and smooth and the smoke is cool. There is some bite, though, right from the beginning, requiring care in smoking. The Virginia flavor, while not very complex, is nevertheless dark and good, an excellent compliment to the natural sweetness present. That sweetness is also balanced by a background note of sourness. There are some minor moisture problems at the end of this third, but a pipe cleaner takes care of them. In the second third, the sweetness is not as quite strong, and I don't notice the sourness anymore. The Virginia flavor is fairly dark and rich, but still not overly full or complex. This is not a bad thing, since the overall taste is very good and far from one-dimensional; it reminds me a lot of McClelland's Dark Star, though not as full. The fairly minor bite from the first third seems to have vanished here, and the smoke remains smooth, though there is still some moisture gurgle. In the final 1/3 of the bowl, the flavor stays pretty much the same, sweet and dark. There is some additional complexity present here, especially if DGT is used. This blend isn't as full or complex as Dark Star, but it is very good in its own right. There is also not much moisture left in the bottom of the bowl after smoking. Overall, I enjoyed smoking this and I will continue to do so in the future. This has almost everything I love in a Virginia tobacco, lacking only a bit of complexity which would put it into the "outstanding" category. The only problem I see with this blend is the moisture during the smoke, though it isn't excessive. An excellent tobacco!