Troost Special Cavendish Review

I got a pouch of this as a free sample and have been smoking it in the mornings when I’m half awake and the coffee drowns out a lot of the taste. I finally sat down to smoke it and pay attention to it and here is what I discovered:

The tobacco had a sweet chocolaty and toasted graham cracker sort of smell that was very appealing in the jar. The consistency was such that I felt it needed to be rubbed out a little more in order to get a decent pack and consistent draw. The moisture level seemed about right.

The Troost lit well with a nice nutty flavor in the first few puffs. The burn was so-so with a total of 5 relights throughout the entire bowl. It did burn hot which meant I had to pace my puffs to keep it from biting me. I found the flavor to be pretty robust and lacking of much sweetness. I know that Troost also has an Aromatic Cavendish blend which I imagine takes more liberties with flavor than this one. The most notable taste I could draw out of it was a slight barrel aged whiskey flavor, but it didn’t compete well with the bite that wanted to come on. I can’t say that I really care to much for this tobacco but I’ll smoke the rest of the pouch over time because I can’t stand to see weed go to waste. I have some of the Troost Aromatic and I’m interested to see how it does. While I’ve certainly had worse, it makes me wonder it OTC blends like this are one of the contributing factors to new pipers going from “gung-ho” to abandoning the hobby. There are decent pouches available for those who are starting out and not interested in spending a lot, but I don’t think this is one of them.

Pros- Price, rubbed out nicely, lit well
Cons- Burned hot and absent of any real depth in flavor.
Overall 4/10