Virginia/Perique (VaPer) Showdown

[Slow Triathlete]

I was intrigued by the “gift donation” to my VaPer challenge that I received from EvanS and decided that I would go ahead and review one of the blends that he sent me. The blend that I chose was Telegraph Hill from GL Pease. This is the second entry on this showdown from Pease, Filmore is a hard one to beat but we will see how Telegraph Hill ranks.

The sample that I got was a bit too dry for my tastes so I put the sample in a bowl and put a wet towel over the top of it for about 4 hours. After that I pulled some out and started loading my pipe. This stuff was really easy to load and tamped down really easily.

Upon lighting this blend up I was greeted with very, very mild Virginias. I didn’t taste any Perique in there yet but since I have experienced this before with other blends I wasn’t too worried about it. This blend burns very cleanly and doesn’t require any relights.

Okay, getting near the middle of the bowl and I am still waiting for any kind of appearance from the Perique. I get subtle whiffs of it as I’m smoking but nothing that ever tastes like it in my draw. Now I had read some of the reviews on tobaccoreviews.com and knew ahead of time that this blend was pretty light on the Perique but I certainly wasn’t expecting this.

Down at the bottom of the bowl now and there has been the vague appearance of Perique right near the end of the smoke.

Overall, I didn’t like the blend as a VaPer blend. As a Virginia it was pretty good. It was very mild and never presented a problem either to my tongue or to the burn of the blend. This blend would probably serve as a good bridge for a straight Virginia smoker to start down the VaPer road but I think that anyone who is a VaPer smoker will find this blend way too plain. This one will take 9th position because it is so low in Perique. With that said, I still enjoyed it better than Kajun Kake and Navy Flake.

1) McConnell Scottish Cake
2) Escudo
3) GL Pease Filmore
4) H & H Anniversary Kake
5) Treasures of Ireland – Limerick
6) Dorchester
7) Luxury Bullseye Flake
8) McClelland Bulk 2015
9) GL Pease Telegraph Hill
10) Kajun Kake
11) Luxury Navy Flake