MacBaren Navy Flake

[Mad Hatter]

An air-cured mixture of burley, VA and mild cavendish. This is a typical MacBaren flake, IMO. It's medium brown in color with a light smattering in equal amounts of light and very dark brown tobaccos. In the tin it has a very slight aroma that requires a little attention just to notice its being there. The flake breaks easily, regardless of moisture level, into splinters of varying lengths. Rubbed out further it is reduced to crumbles and dainty ribbons. The taste on this one is extremely mild, tasting mostly of VAs with a hint of rum cased cavendish. It burns like a MacBaren so either use a filter or puff carefully as it heats up rather quickly. I think I got the best results from very small, regular puffs with an occaisional half-draw. The rum flavor grows as the bowl progresses but never, even in the bottom of the bowl, reaches anything better than subtle. All in all its just a very mild aromatic with a pleasing smell. Might be better for me in a large, broad bowl, but I'm sure that anyone who likes Vanilla Cream or Viginia Flake will also like this as the basis for the blends seems to me to be the same.

[Mad Hatter]

Smokes mildly cooler and more tastefully in a filter pipe, but IMO its just a slightly lighter version of Plumcake that comes in flake form.

[Slow Triathlete]

I agree with you on this one. I tried it last week and found that it was extremely mild without much taste. I'll probably trade this one out.

[dls]

I was actually a bit underwhelmed by this blend, it seemed to leave somewhat of a sour taste, and had tongue bite similar to thermite. I'm going to let my tin sit for a while, and then I'll give it another try.

[DubintheDam]

It is one of my favorites, but I don't smoke it much these days. I too find it better in a filter pipe, it does bite somewhat. I find the slightly artificial casing some smokers refer to.. is there. I prefer Capstan (Blue tin) more these days, sweet without any cavandish.

For me I still have a tin in the cellar and I would recommend this, particularly to newbies as it is a good flake and well priced. I prefer Scottish Mixture and Dark Twist these days for my 'go to' MacB. It's funny on strength MacB do list this as one of their Full Strength baccy's. But generally MacB's are not that strong in nicotine.

Good review

[Mandrakespain]

I tried this yesterday for the first time, and i quite liked it. Agree with the opinion that is quite mild, only having a little taste like...honey? But compared to other mild tobaccos (like Erinmore Mixture, I did not like that one, tasted like...soaked teabags? MadHatter, you seem to be the only one in this board that like this one, you are more than welcome to receive the 98% that is still in my tin, just send me your details) is not unpleasant at all, quite a good tobacco to enjoy when you do not fancy anything stronger...

I´ll compare it to the SG Navy Flake when I receive it from smokingpipes (one day...), but from the reviews I'm expecting it to be stronger (ant that is good also).

Regards

[Kayak_Rat]

I tried this flake for the first time tonight. I had done little research on it, so I went in with a "clean" mind. I agree with the above in that it is not an over whelming smoke at all. There in lies why I enjoyed it. The light casing and slight sweetness made it seem like a baccy I could smoke all day. Pleasent room note and no tongue bite(must have been lucky). This seems like a perfect baccy for a newb moving from heavily aro-ed tobak to a more refined taste. I would buy this again. Great any time of the day.

Edit: I did smoke this in a small Stanwell and it did well. Dont know how well it would do in a larger pipe.