Rattrays Marlin Flake Pipe tobacco 100g Tin

Manufacturer Description:
A traditional Flake with the following components: Dark Virginia, Black Cavendish and Perique, which tastes very strong and should be smoked slowly. It has a fine sweetly note, a light Nut- and Whiskey flavour and nuances of port wine.

Characterisation:
The tobacco lays in the tin as a single, regularly folded slice. The flake is dark with a bright grain and smells like sweet pumpernickel from the Perique. A little bit reserved sweetness is noticeable, too. The flake tends to decompose by taking it out of the tin and it feels a little bit dampish. 

Plugging:
To plug the flake you can preferable twitch off a part that is twice as long as the used pipe deep, fold this in the middle and carefully twist it into the pipe to get a consistent, not too compressed filling. At last you can use some crumbles to make it easier to light up the tobacco. Alternately you can twist the flake between your fingers to a ready rubbed tobacco, and plug it fluffily as a mixture.    

Light up:
With both methods the tobacco tends to swell, what makes it a little bit difficult to light up constantly. It may be necessary to press down with the tamper and light up again. But if the tobacco once is lighted up it’ll be glowing permanently and slowly to the end.

Smoking  properties:
As soon as the tobacco is lighted up the dominating taste of Perique, accompanied by a subliminal sweetness, is noticeable. Burley and nuances of the added flavours are to sense and responsible for the slight nuttily taste. The typical tangy-sourly taste of Virginia is nearly unremarkable. The Marlin Flake is pleasant on the tongue, very constant and slow burning and in spite of the dampish humidity with rather less condensate. A dry, coarse-grained, medium grey ash with a few unburned parts of tobacco will remain. 

Redolency:
The redolence is a mixture of a native, spicy smell of tobacco and a nuttily-sweetly smell of the flavours, whereas those are rather discreet. The smoke is a little bit heavy, but not obtrusive. Welcome to the surrounding, if it sometimes also may be a smell of tobacco with less remarkable flavours.  

Conclusion:
An interesting tobacco, which is dominated by Perique, Burley and discreet flavours. A little bit circumstantially to plug, but then easy to handle, with pleasing smoking properties and redolence. A tobacco which could be smoked at every opportunity, because it doesn’t need a lot of attention and is unobtrusive in the redolence. The Marlin Flake is in spite of it’s discreet flavours suitable for enthusiasts of English blends as for beginners, who wouldn’t avoid handling flakes.    

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