Coffee flavored blend contest
Winton
Master
in Tobacco Talk
Let me describe a wonderful smoking experience. For the context, it has been way too cold to smoke outside. Two nights ago, I had to scrape ice off my car, while the freezing rain was falling. That is not as fun as it sounds. Today, it was UP to the low 40's! I tried to turn a tamper, but it was too cold to turn the details I like on a tamper.
The first pipe is a no-name pipe, that I got from a guy on Pipes Magazine in 2011. He was really good at rustifying pipes. This one looks like lava is flowing over the sides of the pipe. The blend was Russ's Chocolate Covered Espresso. It just arrived a week or so ago.
The second pipe is the 2016 POY from CPS. Christian Pipe Smokers forum. It is a Graybow. The blend was C&D's Mocha Cavendish from a number of years ago. I don't think it is still offered. What I smoked had variety of tobacco, but the present Mocha offering has only black tobacco. The blend I smoked today, I picked up my first Chicago Pipe Show, many years ago.
I alternated pipes as throughout the smoke. Both tasted very good, but the coffee flavor was stronger in the newer blend. This is to be expected. If you enjoy coffee with your smoke, perhaps you should try a mocha blend.
Also, the first person, at the next CPCC meeting in Arlington Heights on 2/23, who asks for the tamper I turned, can have it.
Comments
More entries? http://www.tobaccoreviews.com/search#q=coffee
A while back I wrote a review here of Sutliff Coffe Blend:
(Tobacco Review: Sutliff Coffee Blend)
Description from the Pipes & Cigars Website:
"Sutliff Coffee is a blend of Virginia-based and steamed black Cavendishes with a rich top note of Brazilian coffee that's perfectly compatible with the underlying tobacco.
Strength: Mild
Tobacco: Cavendish - Virginia
Style:Aromatic
Room Note: 3 - Balanced
"My observations on Sutliff Coffee Blend:
Although my tobacco preference is for sweet dessert-like aromatics I occasionally reach for something not quite so sweet for a change of pace such as: Carter Hall, Sutliff Mixture 79 (but not often), Edgeworth Ready Rubbed (MATCH Blend), Velvet, and the MATCH BLEND of John Rolfe Peach Brandy - which hasn't got a hint of either peaches or brandy in the blend. Yet all are quite mild, and a pleasant smoke that satisfies without indulging my aromatic confection cravings. Sutliff Coffee Blend fits right in among the above mentioned OTC blends - but with something extra for the coffee lovers.
Upon opening the pouch you might have to work your nose like a coke sniffing addict to detect the pouch note of coffee, but eventually you'll get the slightest whisper of coffee essence ... but chances are you'd get a more potent aroma of coffee by sniffing the hands of Juan Valdez after a hard day of harvesting Colombian coffee beans - and petting his donkey - than from the pouch note.
As for the taste and room note of the blend - an explanation is in order - to fully comprehend from this point on it's assumed the reader has a vague familiarity with the old fashion coffee percolators (either stainless steel or PYREX Glass) used by your parents and grandparents. Completely disregard everything you know about Starbucks and the automatic drip coffeemakers like MR. COFFEE or Kureg that dominate the market today. To understand the room note and taste of Sutliff Coffee Blend cleanse your mind of that luscious aroma of freshly brewed coffee and that first sip of your morning coffee, and instead travel back in time with me to the 50s' and 60's as I visit the home of my relatives. Or your relatives for that matter.
Back then coffee was made on a stove, and the coffee pot was referred to as a percolator.
For a good reason.
The ground coffee was spooned into a strainer basket fitting onto a pump stem. As the hot water came to a boil it pumped up through the stem into basket of coffee grounds as it percolated. Eventually whoever was making the coffee removed the stem and basket from the pot, tossing the spent coffee grounds into the trash. And for the remainder of the day, until the pot was empty, they would reheat the coffee when they wanted a cup. By the end of the day the coffee would be strong and bitter and flowed like mud. Packing a caffeine wallop greater than a six pack of Red Bull. And that once pleasant aroma of freshly brewed coffee would take on the pungent stench of burnt coffee. Nowhere near as pleasing - but a variant semblance of the coffee aroma. So if you were a family member stopping by unexpectedly for a visit - chances are that's the coffee you'd be drinking. But if special company arrived - then a new pot was brewed to impress the guests.
Both the room note and flavor of Sutliff Coffee Blend are reminiscent of that strong and somewhat bitter reheated burnt coffee. And as unpleasant as that might sound if you were drinking a cup - that's not the case if you're smoking a bowl. It fits what you should expect from a coffee flavored pipe tobacco. Plus, it smokes cool. And as with a majority of aromatic Sutliff blends there is little if any tongue bite.
The tobacco lights easily, stays lit, and burns to a nice white ash. And since it's not a heavily cased sweet aromatic there is no goop what-so-ever in the bottom of the bowl.
Perfect smoke for the woodsman, fisherman, hunter or camper who enjoys making his morning coffee on a campfire in an old fashioned stainless steel coffee pot - goes out for a little early morning fishing or hunting - then returns mid-afternoon to his campsite and pours another steaming cup of coffee from that early morning brew. And loves it.
https://tobaccopipeblog.com/2017/05/08/espressotabak/
Horst Lichter’s Espressotabak by Vauen