I have long been a fan of many of Mac Baren's offerings so I wanted to try their newest blend "Honey & Chocolate". This is a black cavendish blend that is heavily topped with cocoa, honey, licorice and sugar.
The cut is your standard Danish loose cut with short ribbons of dark brown and black leaf. The moisture content is rather high but not quite "wet". The smell from the tin is a heavy musty scent with a slight resemblance to chocolate.
Packing is pretty easy and I went a little light on the pressure. The initial match brought forth a very dark and heavy flavor similar to the tonquin topping of Sam Gawith's "1792 Flake", although the Mac Baren is not as sophisticated as the Lakeland flake.
When pushed, this blend will bite quite hard. The flavor becomes one-dimensional and tastes not unlike old coffee grounds. If puffed with a lot of respect the tobacco burns slow and cool and requires few relights. A slow cadence rewards the smoker with a subtle sweet dark chocolate flavor and exhaling through the nose only enhances this effect. The general flavor is different from any other blend I have smoked before and it would be correct to say that one might need to acquire a taste for this.
For a moist tobacco it smokes dry and leaves the pipe walls clean of any sticky residue. It does, however, color the flavor of the bowl after one smoke so you may want to avoid using a favorite pipe to try this one.
I just wanted to say that I agree with your review, spot on.
ReplyDeleteI stumbled across this tobacco as a clearance earlier this year and thought it would be worth the try.
I have been trying to find more of it since. The only other comment I would make is that the the leaf almost has a cigar like quality to it, which marries with the dark chocolate very nicely (to me), but can get to be a bit much it you puff it like a train, or at least it did for me.