Oriental / English Tobacco » McClelland Personal Reserve Bombay Court Tobacco Reviews

I was at a B&M when I first purchased this tin, and it's been sitting there for a while.  The tin is stamped at 2003, so its been properly aged.  Naturally, I cracked it open immediately and smelled it.  The tin smells of... some sort of sour sweetness.  Allegedly thats the McCelland smell, but I don't care cause it smells pretty good IMO.

The tobacco gives a complex smoke, but its stable in its complexity.  I can put it in any of my pipes for my repitore and it'll smoke pretty similar to any other pipe that I have, and thats nice because sometimes I don't feel like sitting down for an hour on a single bowl.

Now as for the smoke, upon lighting you're given a taste that is similar to the sweet and sour sauce.  I'm assuming this is some sort of interplay between the VA's and the Orientals.  After a bit, the blend gets a bit of smokiness, with the sweetness being subdued.  It will continue like this until the end of the bowl.  The flavors move around and play for a bit but it usually transitions from a sweet to smoky blend, and I'm quite fine with this.

I did however get bored with it after a while and have jarred up the last 2oz of the 4oz tin that I purchased.  Thats why I can only give it 4 stars.