If you’ve been smoking a pipe for a while, you’ve probably heard of Lakeland tobacco blends. These mostly come from either Gawith & Hogarth or Samuel Gawith, and include things like Grousemoor, Ennerdale, and this one – Bob’s Chocolate Flake.
Lakelands get a bad rap from some people, and I suspect that’s mostly from people who have smelled a tin of a Lakeland but not actually smoked it. Ennerdale, for example, has a very distinctive and fairly strong floral note n the tin. Comparing to “old lady perfume“ is not entirely unreasonable, and some people assume the stuff will forever “ghost” a pipe. I’ve found this to be a baseless fear; I’m on my second tin of it and it’s fine. It doesn’t smoke like it smells.
I’d wanted to try Bob’s for a while, and finally scored an ounce of it. It’s a dense flake, which doesn’t easily crumble like some. I’d expected a strong chocolate note from the bag, but it’s more of a subtle undertone.
I’m not one of those people that describes tobacco in wine tasting terms. Maybe my palate isn’t sufficiently refined, but picking out “notes of dried fruit, sweet grassy almond” whatever just doesn’t happen for me. Bob’s does have a somewhat unique taste; not overpowering and not unpleasant. It’s definitely a more aromatic smoke, but doesn’t seem overly “flavored” as some are. I’m thinking of Lane 1Q / Captain Black’s vanilla, for example.
BCF smokes fine, given a bit of a rub out and 20-30 minutes to dry a bit. It lights evenly and seems to smoke without requiring much in the way of relights, just the occasional light tamp. I like it, but I don’t love it. Will I buy more? I can’t say at this point. I’m about halfway through the ounce of flakes I bought. One of the things I’ve learned about tobacco is that it seems to take a while, at least an ounce or two smoked over several months under different conditions and in different pipes, for me to decide whether I like a particular blend or not.
My tastes are also evolving as time passes and I get exposed to more blends. Where I used to love aromatics like 1Q, I now find them to have a displeasing chemical taste from what seems like a rather heavy-handed dousing with propylene glycol (PG), a humectant used to keep it from drying out. I’ve gotten more accustomed to VA/Perique blends, though my tolerance varies on those. About the only constant is my taste for English and Balkan blends; I’ve become a real fan of Latakia.
Anyway. Bob’s is a decent enough tobacco, but so far I haven’t really developed a love for it. We’ll see if and how that changes over time as I finish off what I have.