C&D Burley Flake #4

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jlong

jlong

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A good way to describe C&D's Burley Flake #4 is Prince Albert picking up a heavy metal guitar and cranking it with Virginia singing softly in the background.

The flakes crumble very easily and after 30 minute dry time, the crumblings load and light easily. The Burley is rich and meaty along with a nice vitamin N kick. I can't detect the Latakia but the Virginia adds a tad of sweetness to this pleasant smoke. There is no bite whatsover with this stuff. A nice change of pace from my usual english/balkan blends.
 
Thanks for your impressions! I've been curious about all 4 C&D burley flakes for a while. I have been enjoying more and more burley as of late. I'm going to try #4 and #2 with my next order. It's good to know there's not a heavy Latakia element in #4 as I don't care for high percentages of lat
 
I've got a jar (plus 2 tins unopened) that I've been working on. Still up in the air on this one, myself. Love me some JKP and Triple Play, but this one still has me on the fence. I taste the Lat, and find it in the nose of the bouquet. Kinda rough around the edges for me...still debating on whether I'll keep my aged tins or try to trade them.

Not a whole lot out there on this blend, for sure. So nice to see it being discussed. Definitely some nic in this stuff...even I, who isn't much affected, feels it depending on when I imbibe.
 
Yes, a little rough around the edges is what I get too. Otherwise very tastey for me.
 
This mix sounds intriguing. What's "rough" about it, for those in-the-know?

For that matter, anyone tried #1, #2, or #3?
 
For me, the roughness is an actual quality of the smoke, as well as the overall flavor. This stuff has given me a feeling akin to heartburn at times, which I attribute to the nic. JKP, though, or 965, Nightcap or any of the other 'stronger' blends never have. The smoke isn't sublime, for lack of a better term...it's not velvety smooth like I find other tobaks to be.

I've only a few burley blends, Boswell's which is sweet and I figure likened to PA or CH, and JKP & TP, in addition to this. The #4 doesn't smoke like any of these at all. Kinda like the difference between filet and NY Strip, in it's smoke quality....not necessarily a bad thing, just a different thing.

I will say that I smoke this very infrequently because I'm not sure of it, and that the last throat burning (which isn't really accurate..more like an uncomfortableness like when you swallow a pill wrong..not the actual pill lodging in your throat so much as the after feeling when you have swallowed) was some time ago. Perhaps my nic exposure has eliminated the feeling..dunno...'cause like I said, the others never made me feel that. Only other blends that have are Filmore and AM Bayou Flake, and I attributed that to the Perique.
 
The roughness I get is a tad of cotton mouth. But I contribute that to the nature of Burley.
 
Understood completely. I'm a big JKP fan; it's the only blend that gave me the "mean greenies" of anything I've smoked, but that was my own damn fault. "Too much of a good thing."

I'll have to try some #4 sometime when I can--I'll likely come back and say, "Deepbass said it best... " :lol:

8)
 
#2 tastes like Red VA in the way of 5100. It also has Dark and Light Burley. The burley isn't nutty but very smooth and pleasant, but nonetheless nondescript. Blends like this are the reason I quit smoking burley; but this time I'm going to give it a better go.
 
I have tried these and really wanted to like them but they are all very strong in the nicotine!
 
Cadfael":hwuv17sj said:
I have tried these and really wanted to like them but they are all very strong in the nicotine!
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"...but...?" :lol:

8)
 
Kyle Weiss":ixh8mo7v said:
Cadfael":ixh8mo7v said:
I have tried these and really wanted to like them but they are all very strong in the nicotine!
Click to expand...
"...but...?" :lol:

8)
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:drunken::drunken: :drunken:

The vitamin N kick is part of the enjoyment of this tobacco and it's not a nic bomb. However contoversial it may be, my tin is half gone and I'm really liking it. Did a bowl this morn with a cup of joe and it was absolutely delicious. It doesn't dry out my mouth like it was at first either. It's likely I've built up a high tolerance for nicotene because I'm not getting the nausea some speak of.
 
My take? Well, I have tins of #'s 1 - 3 and prefer them in the following order:

1) Stonehaven
2) Solani Aged Burley Flake
3) C&D Burley Flake #3
4) Wessex Burley Flake
5) C&D Exhausted Rooster

It's like that.
 
I like the burley flakes, and smoke a lot of burley. You have to like the C&D brand of burley though, which is strong, and a bit bitter #4 is my least favorite, the latakia is too predominant for me. My favorites are #2 and #3. #1 has a bit too much Va for me. They have little in common with the OTCs, as they use a higher grade tobacco, and don't use all the additives, much more pure tobacco. Solani ABF isn't bad, but is topped with chocolate per the manufacturer. I smoke Wessex once in a while, but at times find it to lack character, and be a bit nondescript.
 
I've seen so many guys adopt the opinion that the 'purer' (meaning, I think, less topping, dressing or additive of any kind) a Burley blend is...the better it is. While an opinion is a fine and honorable thing to have, for the sake of argument let's theoretically remove 100% of any additives to the blends and allow them to be pure tobacco and nothing more. (waves his magic wand and the blends are thus transformed) Now, as we smoke the newly revised blends we notice something really interesting abiut them. They taste like shit! Odd how that works. I doubt there is a blender out there that would put together a Burley straight (single leaf) or blend that didn't have some dressing or topping or whatever - as those are the elements that give our beloved but dead-ass Burley it's flavor. And even if a tin description or the blender himself says 'it's all natural tobacco' it's 99% a crock. OH! Wait! There IS one tobacco out there there that's classed as a Burley that might really be totally straight...no additives...and that's Tambolaka. The Indonesian 'Death Weed'! lol To my way of thinking, I'm pleased as punch to have dressings and toppings galore (well...some of the Lakeland items are just a wee bit...brash!) in my Burleys. The art is in the way the additions enhance the blend. The range of what works always amazes me...from Wilke's 'Nut Brown Burley' that surley must have the sugar water applied with a firehose...to something like 'Old Joe Krantz' which tastes frugel and musty with Perique and a fair helping of dust from grandma's attic (but both are great). And re: strength? Burley is strong, depending on the priming of the leaf and all. If a Burley blend isn't strong...it's cut. If we accept that then some blenders just like to put
more kick in their end product. Artistic differences I guess. So...in conclusion...they're all cased...strength is the nature of the weed...and God Bless America! Thank you for your support.
 
Laughing at the single guy slow-clapping. :lol:

Blackhorse, we've all sung that tune once or twice. Pease talked about it at-length a few times.

Bring on the binders/casing/topping etc--just do it classy, blenders. It's pretty obvious when it isn't (they're called cheap aromatics): because I wouldn't want to showcase bad tobacco, either. Pour on the sugar! :cheers:

I babbled a few weeks back about how many things in today's society are "extreme," and "purity" seems to be one of them. In a world that requires the best, the spiciest, the boldest, the most original, the most "pure," or just... the most, it's caused some marriages of reason and practice to become unhinged to be even more... extreme. While there's merit to some of this (like coffee, if it was good in the first place, meaning, properly grown/harvested/bred/processed/roasted/made, people wouldn't have spent 150 years dumping cream and sugar in it--or just drinking shitty coffee black "like a man.") ...but with tobacco? Farmers spent years selectively breeding (and sometimes accidentally) new, tasty strains, growing them in different areas to alter chemistry, and that's even before processing. At this point, with tobacco, taking away is not necessarily adding innovation. I could be wrong. Like with cigarettes--that's not good tobacco.

I guess it takes all kinds. Forget what I just wrote. :lol:
 
Kyle Weiss":itmy9sgg said:
Laughing at the single guy slow-clapping. :lol:

I babbled a few weeks back about how many things in today's society are "extreme," and "purity" seems to be one of them. In a world that requires the best, the spiciest, the boldest, the most original, the most "pure," or just... the most, it's caused some marriages of reason and practice to become unhinged to be even more... extreme. While there's merit to some of this (like coffee, if it was good in the first place, meaning, properly grown/harvested/bred/processed/roasted/made, people wouldn't have spent 150 years dumping cream and sugar in it--or just drinking shitty coffee black "like a man.") ...but with tobacco? Farmers spent years selectively breeding (and sometimes accidentally) new, tasty strains, growing them in different areas to alter chemistry, and that's even before processing. At this point, with tobacco, taking away is not necessarily adding innovation. I could be wrong. Like with cigarettes--that's not good tobacco.

I guess it takes all kinds. Forget what I just wrote. :lol:
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you make a good point or two here. both about purity and personal taste. So many brothers are stockpiling tobacco for the Apocalypse, but there are those who want to try new things for the sake of experience. There are different taste profiles that appeal to different people. The general consensus is that some tobacco is better than others, but if we were always right about everything, why do so many people smoke Camel Lights?

PS about the coffee: some people like a cup of joe, some like a cup of Josephine... I'll have mine black, you enjoy your Venti Nonfat Caramel Macchiato that cost 8 bucks Just Kidding. but a history of the beverage was that more Tea was consumed than coffee in the us until world war 1 when coffee was included with rations.... bad quality coffee, go figure. The boys came back with an addiction that still defines most people's mornings that allowed bad mass produced products to proliferate. There was something else in those rations too: cigarettes... until about this time, they were viewed as "feminine" compared to cigars but they were easier to produce en masse. Same story. The decline of artisanal coffee and the rise of Sanka have parallels with the similar story behind Pipes and Cigars (classy tobacco that the Rich could only afford became the stigma) and a pack of Lucky Strikes.
 
I guess I just live in a spoiled world. "First World Problems," as my buddy Aric would say. :lol:

I sometimes forget my world isn't that of everyone else.

I am fortunate to have a cup of black coffee that doesn't need cream or sugar, nor the need to be an uncompromisable man who can "just drink it black." This is because I'm in the loop of one of the finest coffee roasters on the west coast. What this does is ruins me when I have to go work in backwater Nevada, because I can't drink their coffee--obviously this good stuff has sissified me beyond all return.

Take pipes and tobacco: I don't smoke cigarettes, I smoke a pipe. Why? I like the taste, the history, the challenge, the culture, the people and the stigma behind it. It's quality over quantity.

There is what I call "utilitarian vices," and there's "pleasrures." Folgers and Camel Lights, that's utilitarian. Countless folks rely, and I emphasize on "rely," on these things every day, many seek them multiple times a day. Much fewer people have even had my Nectar Of The Gods coffee and a pipe full of Penzance--my pleasures. Pleasures which would quickly stop being special (to me) if they were a enslaving chemical requirement all the time. $8 sugar-rush and fat bomb? No thanks. 8)

On that note, I'm also happy to say economically, I have spent less money on pipes/tobacco and coffee than most do on Folgers and Camels. Quality sometimes is even cheaper than quantity, both for the soul and for the pocketbook.

Go fig'gur. 8)
 
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