Stanwell Vanilla???

rusirius · July 2012

So when I recently took up pipes, one of the NUMEROUS tobaccos I bought was the Stanwell Vanilla. I had very high hopes for this, especially when cracking the tin and smelling the delightful aroma. I just knew this had potential to be one of my favorites. Now in all fairness, the first time I smoked this was early on in my pipe smoking forey, and I really didn't know what I was doing... I wasn't getting a good, consistent burn, was almost certainly packed too losely, etc... Needless to say, my experience was horrible! Out of all the tobaccos I have tried, many are favorites, some are so-so, and some are take it or leave it... None of them have been "bad"... EXCEPT this one... Even the cheap Borkum Riff Cherry Cavendish I decided to try simply because of it's price was a MUCH MUCH better smoke than this! Even after my tecnique was refined, and I started experiencing pipe tobaccos the way they were truly meant to be experienced, this tobacco just leaves a bad taste in my mouth (quite literally!) So let me explain exactly what my experience is with this. First off, when first lighting it has a rather pungent somewhat acrid taste. Now this is on intial lighting, so not too surprising... You would expect it to then mellow out and develop into it's flavor... Instead what I get from this is an ungodly mouth feel... Like it's drying out my mouth... almost like it's making me "pucker" like something sour... The further it burns down, the worse it gets... I have to keep drinking to re-wet my mouth, but it's like it's "coated" in some sort of acidic ... something... Like a mouth full of vinegar or lemon juice... In fact, on a heavier draw (despite the smoke still being very cool) it almost tastes and feels like there is lemon juice (or battery acid) streaming out of the bit of the pipe... Yeah... exactly.... I've had aromatics... I've had english blends... and I've had virginia flakes... Even the ones I haven't liked a lot, I've found certain things to like about them... Stanwell Vanilla??? Not so much... I can't find a SINGLE thing I like about it.... So what gives? Does anyone else have any experience with this one? Is it a similiar experience or completely different?