Is this a good start for my tobac journey?

[uvacom]

Hey, I'm putting together a shopping list because I'd like to try out representative tobaccos from each of most of the "major" categories. I've got down:

VaPer - Escudo

English - Esoterica Penzance

Virginia - Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake

Balkan - C&D Star of the East

Burley - Macbaren Burley London Blend

Oriental - GL Pease Cairo

Navy - Samuel Gawith Navy Flake


Seems as good as I can do without having any prior knowledge. Is escudo a good representative VaPer? It's called a navy flake but I hear most people refer to it as a VaPer. I'd like to not be redundant and choose distinctive tobaccos which are good examples of these specific styles.

I might also like to try something non-cased with lots of black cavendish, to get a good understanding of that tobacco. Unless it can be skipped.

[Reverie Forest]

I'd also love to hear some feedback on this, just starting into the art, myself.

[Dedalus]

Looks great to me. You might consider trying some MacBaren Navy Flake as well. It's a bit different from the Samuel Gawaith, mainly it's cased with a bit of rum.

[uvacom]

Originally Posted by Dedalus

Looks great to me. You might consider trying some MacBaren Navy Flake as well. It's a bit different from the Samuel Gawaith, mainly it's cased with a bit of rum.

Ah yes, I've heard that's a good one too. But Gawith's website says their navy flake is also cased with rum? I take it the addition is more apparent in the Macbaren offering.

[uncballzer]

A few others I'd recommend; Penzance is/can be strong--something more like Dunhill Early Morning Pipe or 965, or SG Squadron leader are all great english blends and not overkill starting out. For the Va/Per--escudo is a good one, but I'd also recommend Peter Stokebye Luxury Navy Flake or Luxury Bullseye flake. Some Va/Per's can be harsh on the tongue, so go easy with these. Virginias--I'm just getting into them myself. FVF isn't my favorite yet, but I love PS Luxury Twist Flake! I have to have a couple bowls of it daily right now!! There's a ton of Va's that I've not tried, so I can't give the best answer to this one other than PS LTF.

Now correct me if I'm wrong old guys, but I've not really heard of Navy as a category itself--from what I've seen, Navy is just a name of a blend, but it can be different tobacs--PS Luxury Navy Flake is a va/per, macbaren's Navy Flake is a burley, and so forth.

[Mad Hatter]

GLP Cairo also has perique in it in case you didn't know so it might not represent orientals for you very well. I thought the perique really drowned out the orientals. Maybe try one of the McClelland Grand Orientals. Also I didn't feel that Sam Gawith Navy Flake was a very good representative of a "navy" style tobacco because of the amount of latakia used in it. Usually I smoke MacBaren Plumcake navy blend but whatever you choose "navy" is kind of a vague term. MacBaren Dark Twist or Peter Stokkebye Luxury Twist Flake are good cavendish blends. 'course that's just my opinion.

[plexiprs]

Always a good source as well as Tobacco Reviews, is Tobacco Touchstones

[beaupipe]

I suspect that most of us might quibble about specific choice here and there, but I think it looks pretty good.

I'm not sure you need an English, a Balkan, and an Oriental category, especially because of the choices in them.

You didn't want to be redundant, so I will tell you that Penzance and Star of the East are very similar in a lot of ways. I like Star best, but Penzance has a far larger following.

[uvacom]

Okay, I've updated my choices a little bit. I switched the oriental to the Mcclelland samsun because it sounds like it's a fairly neutral but well-regarded and relatively pure oriental. I switched the balkan to the GL Pease caravan because I still wanted to try a GL Pease. I switched the Navy to plumcake because it's different from my other choices and is has a bit of cavendish so I can get an idea for what that's like.

This is the order I placed:

VaPer - Escudo

English - Esoterica Penzance

Virginia - Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake

Balkan - GL Pease Caravan

Burley - Macbaren Burley London Blend

Oriental - Mcclleland Classic Samsun (grand oriental)

Navy - Plumcake

Who knows if it's the perfect list for me, but it'll give me a lot to try (a little over a lb total!) and I can branch out as I smoke through these.

[Mad Hatter]

Looks good man. Glad we could offer some advice

[dillonmcmurphy]

That looks like a mighty fine assortment of tobaccos you've got headed your way. Let me know how you like them. Penzance and FVF are a couple of my favorites. I've heard Escudo is very very good but haven't actually gotten around to trying it . I'm about to place an order a cup o joes for some Escudo, Scottish Cake, and Hal o the Wynd and I have some McClelland's Beacon coming with my new pipe from Boswells.

[uvacom]

Originally Posted by Mad Hatter

Looks good man. Glad we could offer some advice

Thanks for that! It's good to have a community from which to draw knowledge, otherwise I'm just flying blind. As you can tell, I like to do my research, but nothing replaces experience which you guys have and I don't - case in point, I bought an ounce of this stuff from the B&M called "Firedance" thinking it was pretty much a virginia, I even smelled it but my sniffer was off from smelling so many tobacs because I didn't realize it was some blackberry aromatic stuff. Well, it's an okay tobacco anyway (it is a Samuel Gawith) and not as offensive as I could have feared, but that's a story for another day.

[dmkerr]

Looks like great choices. They aren't what I would have picked in all categories but I think if you asked 100 people, you'd get 100 different responses. Your choices well represent the styles you listed. I'd be curious to hear what you think of them, particularly the Samsun, which I happen to be smoking right now.