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Balkan Sobranie info

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Jitterbugdude

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This link contains an article by GL Pease. In it are a few of the mixing cards used to make Balkan Sobranie. It is an interesting article. Note the drop in Latakia from 50% down to 35%. There appears to be so many variables over the years that it would be impossible to make a reproduction and if you could, what year?- since the ratios seemed to change on a yearly basis.

With this article in mind I made my own "Randy's Sobranie" a few months ago.

The blend that I like is:

Latakia : 38%
Samsun Maden: 29%
Viginia Flue Cured: 33%

Another blend that I like, but not as much as the first one listed is:

Latakia: 46%
Xanthi Yaka: 32%
Virginia Flue Cured: 22%


Sobranie Article: http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/out-of-the-ashes/balkan-sobriety/
 

DonH

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Nice blends! I'll have to try those once the harvest/curing stage is over. Making pipe blends is a winter activity for me.
 

deluxestogie

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Wonderful article, Randy. I was disappointed that the original material presented was limited to the percent of Latakia. Since most of my experience with Balkan Sobranie Smoking Mixture occurred primarily during the 1970s, I have a new understanding of why my taste in Latakia (percentage in a blend) leans toward the high end: 25% is nice, 50% is better, 75% is too much. I sure wish they had shown an actual, early blend card, so I would have a better notion of the quantities of Yenidje and Virginia, as well as which Virginias and which Virginia curing groups.

Pease does make the excellent point that starting in the 1980s, the Smoking Mixture became a different product, and a constantly changing one. (My last surviving can--1/2 pound--was purchased in San Francisco in 1979, and nursed to extinction in the late 1990s.) I actually can't recall ever having purchased the flat tins or the pouches--just the small and large cans. So all my recollections of that wonderful blend are from the pre-innovation period.

Now that I have an abundant supply of Latakia, sun-cured Yenidje (Xanthi Yaka) and various Virginias--both flue and air-cured, kilned and un-kilned but aged--as well as a better appreciation for the ballpark of Latakia percentage in the older versions of Balkan Sobranie White, I'll have a better chance of getting closer to the holy grail. Oops! Closer to my holy grail.

Bob
 

istanbulin

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Thanks for the article Randy. I prefer around 25 % of Latakia in my all-Oriental pipe blends (without flue-cured tobacco).

Bob, I hope you got good sun-cured Xanthi Yaka 18A (which is not Yenidje alone) leaves there, I couldn't see any photos of those leaves in your blog.
 
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