My first bout with an English Blend

[Lefty]

Only known as 965 from my local B&M. WOW, talk about a kick in the arse. Very reminiscent of standing near a campfire. It has a nice aroma and there is no hiding from it that's for sure. If I'm not mistaken this is 40% latakia, if it's the same one I'm thinking of.

This won't be my regular smoke but a nice departure from aromatics.

[paperairplane]

The campfire part is the Latakia... 965 is a good english touchstone. EMP has less latakia, more bright and oriental tobaccos, Nightcap has more latakia. All are kinda the same.

Be careful, you will soon be taking breaks from English tobaccos.

[Piper]

Lefty, I just started smoking an English blend too. I smoked Captain Black White for years (some of my pipes still taste of it) then branched out first to virginias (SG-Full Virginia Flake), then virginia blends (GLP Haddo's Mixture=Vaper and GLP Cumberland=Vaburley). For the Captain Black I substituted GLP Barbary Coast, a burley blend. As you can tell, I really like those GLP tobaccos (probably because of his cool website) so when I decided to try an English blend I went for GLP Westminster, which gets 4 stars on Tobacco reviews.com. I really like Westminster: very pleasant, not too much Latakia, smokes pretty cool and doesn't offend my family. Right now my ratio is approximately 1/3 virginia, 1/3 virginia blends and burley blend, 1/3 Westminster. I enjoy getting tobacco suggestions from the folks on this list. Escudo is my next purchase.

[Piper]

Lefty, I just started smoking an English blend too. I smoked Captain Black White for years (some of my pipes still taste of it) then branched out first to virginias (SG-Full Virginia Flake), then virginia blends (GLP Haddo's Mixture=Vaper and GLP Cumberland=Vaburley). For the Captain Black I substituted GLP Barbary Coast, a burley blend. Cumberland is my least favorite. As you can tell, I really like those GLP tobaccos (probably because of his cool website) so when I decided to try an English blend I went for GLP Westminster, which gets 4 stars on Tobacco reviews.com. I really like Westminster: very pleasant, not too much Latakia, smokes pretty cool and doesn't offend my family. Right now my ratio is approximately 1/3 virginia, 1/3 virginia blends and burley blend, 1/3 Westminster. I enjoy getting tobacco suggestions from the folks on this list. Escudo is my next purchase.

[JAX]

I've been enjoying English blends for the last few months...can't seem to get enough of 'em right now. If you'd like to explore English blends consider the following: Squadron leader, Commonwealth (full bodied), and any of the Frog Morton series (varying degrees of body).

[Dedalus]

Though I've only been smoking aromatics, I am intrigued by the 'campfire' description. Perhaps Nightcap might be a good purchase?

[Kayak_Rat]

Originally Posted by Dedalus

Though I've only been smoking aromatics, I am intrigued by the 'campfire' description. Perhaps Nightcap might be a good purchase?

Might start with Early Morning Pipe and move up. Jumping into nightcap from aromatics might not be a great idea. Just my thoughts.

[Dedalus]

Thanks for the heads up. Is there a similar room note (preferable intense, since I do a good deal of my smoking outside) with early morning pipe and nightcap? Or is there something completely different that has that campfire smell that is worth trying? Thanks for all the responses to my questions in this an other posts. CS was a great place to stumble upon. Cheers.

[SailorJack]

I'm sure that a lot of regular English type smokers started such as I did with McClelland's Frog Morton. It's a good place for an aromatic smoker to begin since it has a bit of sweetness to it. After you get bored with the monochromatic FM then you can either try the other Froggies in the series or you can start to branch out to Penzance, Squadron Leader, Star of the East and other more complex blends. Then you will get bored with heavy English blends and progress to smoking Virginia Flakes or simpler American type Burley based blends. It's a natural progression and the journey through the many different type of blends as your tastes change over the years is just wonderful.

Enjoy the Voyage!!!

[Vrbas]

Originally Posted by Kayak_Rat

Might start with Early Morning Pipe and move up. Jumping into nightcap from aromatics might not be a great idea. Just my thoughts.

I didn't have much of a problem jumping right into Nightcap. My first bout w/ it was not strong, didn't have a heavy smoky characteristic to it, and didn't make me want to go to sleep. It was good nonetheless, i just think i'm an odd one out on this when i say it's not strong. I think 1792 is strong.