GOOD LATAKIA DUMP

The term Latakia dump refers to tobacco mixtures with a very large proportion of Latakia. Teenagers love such products and will gladly fill their cheap briars with them; something about the strong smoky reek is like a religious revelation to the young.
Certainly when I was still a boy such products appealed immensely to me.

[For a description of my favourite boyhood tobacco, go here: Balkan Sobranie
It was quite literally the gilding of a youthfull age. And I am nothing if not self referential. ]



Samuel Gawith's
COMMONWEALTH
Full Strength Mixture
Fifty percent fine Virginia, fifty percent Latakia.


I like this tobacco much more than I do.


What that last sentence really means is that I like the idea, the aroma, and the feel of this tobacco more than I like actually smoking it. Such a blend requires a bit of attention, lest it become a tongue-burner. And because of the amount of flue-cured leaf, it can and should be enjoyed at a higher moisture level than most smokers of Oriental blends are wont to do. Treat it like a Virginia blend, however, and be pleasantly surprised. It is like having butter go across the tongue, or filling your mouth with tweed and leather. It has a creaminess that goes well with sherry.
It is good. It is quite good.
But I wanted to like it a lot more than I do.


The tin aroma is richly sooty, the appearance of the tobacco between dusk and black. Not a tobacco to keep in the regular rotation, but one to open up occasionally for a fine dark day.



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