As a fan of the tobacco formerly known as Rattray’s Exotic Orange, I often hear pipe smokers express their love for Holger Danske Original Orange Mellow. I’ve withheld my opinion because I hadn’t smoke it. Now I wonder if they are buying a different blend than I did.
The tin I bought at Mayan Imports Metairie location last months does have a slight orange aroma but its buried under the light Amaretto scent. I’m curious about the description on tobaccoreviews.com as it lists the “amaretto, coffee, orange.” I guess the listed them by alphabet instead of strength of ingredients. You would think something named Original Orange would have orange as the strongest flavor. It also has coffee as an ingredient. It’s not any coffee I’m familiar with though. It was dry – not crispy dry – but dry enough to immediately load it into a pipe and apply flame.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Not overbearingly orange, just a light amaretto scent and dry enough to smoke. What’s not to like? Nothing.
A Pleasant Smoke, But…
Right out of the tin, I found it to be a good smoke and I’ve tried it in five different pipes so far. Interestingly, the first pipe, a clay tavern pipe, just didn’t produce the flavor I was expecting. Thinking it might be the pipe, I tried a second bowl in a clay tasting pipe from MarKen Pipes. The orange and amaretto were more noticeable. The third bowl, in a meerschaum, and the flavor seemed to tease, “here I am.”
Conventional pipe smoking thought would indicate that the true flavor and aroma of a tobacco should be found smoking in these three pipes. Conventional thought was wrong. I barely thought “orange” the first bowl and just occasionally caught a whiff of orange in the second and third bowl. The amaretto led the way in all three.
Orange Apparent
With the fourth bowl, in a Missouri Meerschaum Cobbit, I tasted and smelled the orange. It didn’t become dominant and overpower the amaretto but accented it. Imagine taking a 3/4-shot of amaretto and adding a splash of Triple Sec. That’s about what I got. It was… pleasant. And, at no time did it bite or burn my tongue either.
It took a fifth bowl in an Ardor Venere and for the orange to say, “I’m here!” Again, conventional thought tells us I should have tasted the full flavor in one of the other pipes. I am left wondering if it actually took the cake in the Ardor to enhance the flavors and make two out of the three profiles stand out? As for the coffee, it just never appeared.
All that being said, Holger Danske Original Orange is an enjoyable smoke. About halfway through a bowl, the flavors become even more subtle base tobaccos come to the front. I think the balance between the Black Cavendish and Virginias is what keeps this blend from biting and maintains the light sweetness throughout the smoke.
Is it as good as Rattray’s Exotic Passion (previously known as Exotic Orange)? Not in my opinion. What I like about Rattray’s blend is the honey and mandarin Orange flavoring and aroma I find lasting the whole bowl. The Original Orange is more of an orange zest note and disappears too quickly.
(Yes, I like aromatic pipe tobacco blends. For my review on Solani Blend 127 – Green click on the link.)
© J. Gibson Creative Services. August 17, 2019
