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Presbyterian Mixture advertisement

Opus Eponymous by Ghost

In my early pipe-smoking days, being a lover of heavy metal/hard rock music, I was quick to notice the great artwork of the Presbyterian Mixture tin. It’s Gothic church and font type immediately appealed to me. I mean, look at the cover of one of my favourite records, Opus Eponymous by the band Ghost. But for some reason I never tried the blend..

Presbyterian Mixture has been amongst us for a pretty long time. This fine tobacco originally had no name. It was blended before the first World War especially for the Very Rev. Dr. John White, sometime minister of the Barony Kirk in Glasgow and Moderator of the General Assembly in Scotland in 1929. He introduced it to Stanley Baldwin, later Earl Baldwin, Prime Minister in 1923, 1924 and 1935. He liked it so much that regular supplies were sent down to him and it was he who suggested that it be called “Presbyterian Mixture”. Hence the name. Earl Baldwin even said “My thoughts grow in the aroma of that particular tobacco.” My girlfriend would say “My nose suffers in the aroma of that particular tobacco.”..

Presbyterian Mixture advertisement from 1938

In the early days the mixture was made by A. Gale & Co Ltd. from Glasgow. The blender was William P. Solomon. Now it is made for years by Planta from Berlin.

For me Presbyterian is an oriental mixture. The tin of the international version (more about that later) says this: Mellow blend of US-Virginia tobaccos and high quality Macedonian grades – exclusive, aristocratic pipe mixture. The Planta catalogue also says that the blend contains a number of selected Latakia leaf tips. This has been a controversy for years but I really don’t know why.. When you smoke it you clearly can taste the dark leaf (an oriental in itself). There is not much of it in the mixture but it is clearly noticeable.

Yes, smoking the mixture.. I got my first tin of Presbyterian from fellow Dutch pipe-smoker forum member and dear friend Ed. He had bought a tin in Belgium (unfortunately it is not available in The Netherlands), smoked a couple of bowls and decided it wasn’t for him. So he gave it away to (lucky) me.

Dunhill Bruyere from the patent era

At first I had trouble to fathom, to understand the blend. I could not get a grasp on the taste, very annoying. Until I read somewhere that Presbyterian is best smoked in small bowls. I had a small Dunhill Bruyere from the patent era that I not used much. No tobacco would work in that one. So I packed the bowl full with Presbyterian, lit it and… got that magic fit between a pipe and a tobacco.

Presbyterian Mixture is not an overly complex blend. So I smoke it often late at night before I go to sleep. Upon lighting you just taste the latakia but soon the Virginia and then the orientals take over. I don’t know which orientals are used. Somewhere I read “Katerini” but I am not sure. The blend is very mellow, a good gentle smoke. I love the sweet and sour combination that plays back and forth in the nose and on the tasting palate. The room note however leaves something to be desired according to my girlfriend. Latakia and women.. Hmz…

I always smoked 50 gr. tins that I bought in Belgium and the USA. Then halfway of last year I saw that in Germany they had 100 gr. tins (no more 50 gr. ones) for only €14.60. The 50 gr. tins I bought in Belgium before were around €11.
So 2 x 50 gr. €11 (old price) = €22 for 100 gr. Huh? The mixture became much cheaper?? So I bought a new 100 gr. German tin for comparison, opened it and smoked it. I did not like it… The taste that made the old Presbyterian unique was missing. In stead I tasted a more artificial chocolate/honey sweetness. Halfway the bowl the orientals used to shine and now it was kind of flat. Also the blend smelled different in the tin. First it smelled a bit like wet grass, now I smelled a bit of chocolate..

So I mailed Planta about this. And they were very kind to mail me back pretty soon:

Dear Arno,

Please accept my answer as I am responsible for international sales in PLANTA. I should appreciate your information that you smoke our PRESBYTERIAN pipe mixture. Thank you for being one of our loyal customers!

Please let me explain the situation. For many decades we sell a Presbyterian mixture in Germany (which is different to the international blend) in 100g tins only while the international blends comes out exclusively in 50g tins. We made the international blend according to the expectations of our friends in the USA, UK and other foreign countries too. The “German” mixture however had been done according more to the taste of our countrymen. But please, none of the two different mixtures had ever been changed. Both have remained the same. Of course, you as an experienced pipe smoker know, that every year the tobacco changes a little bit…

Please understand that we cannot influence the price policy of our importers and foreign retailers. There are also different excise tax rates in different countries, the VAT differs and other cost factors too. In contrast to Germany (where we have got fixed consumer prices in all shops), in a lot of countries there isn’t any price fixing.

In the U.K., for instance, in some shops you have to pay 11,80 Pounds for the 50g tin, in the USA sometimes 10,50 US$ and in Belgium I found 11 Euro in the Internet. So, there is a big difference everywhere.

Hopefully, this gives you a better picture.

Best regards,
Gerd

New German 100 gr. Presbyterian Mixture

So….. There are 2 different Presbyterian Mixtures! An international version (the one I like) and a German version. Well, for once I am glad I don’t live in Germany.. I do not like the idea that a tobacco company decides for me what my taste is. I hope this is not done more often with other mixtures that are available in both Europe and the USA. What also worries me slightly is that the tobacco changes a little bit every year. Of course tobacco manufacturers are dependent on the raw leaves they can get. But it is a nice excuse to make little cost reducing and profit enhancing changes to a blend. So I don’t know.. I still have my doubts.. The international Presbyterian Mixture version only became cheaper through the years. In the USA last year it was $11.19. Now it is $10.59..

So if you want to try this legendary mixture, smoke the (still) wonderful international version. Unless you have a “German taste”. Whatever that is..

Here are some tins from old to new:

Very old “presby”

Without the “classic blue”

With the “classic blue”

Old German made tin art

Current international version

Turkish tobacco farmers

Ok where was I.. Oh yes! Oriental tobacco. (Click here for part 1.)

Tobaccos grown in Turkey
The three principal tobacco growing areas of Turkey are:
1. The Aegean zone – Izmir
2. The Black Sea zone – Samsun Baffra
3. Marmara and Thrace – Brussa

It should be remembered that within each type there are several grades. Also, the tobaccos that bear the same names as their Greek cousins are quite similar. They have the same basic aroma, nicotine content and burning and other qualities.

Smyrna (lzmir)
Izmir tobacco constitutes a very large part of the entire Turkish tobacco crop. No wonder because it is one of the most well known oriental tobaccos. It has a very small leaf with a small vein construction and a low nicotine content. The color varies from light green to pale gold and it is very sweet and lightly aromatic. It is excellent for blending because it “marries” with practically any other type of tobacco.

Samsun-Maden (Samsun tobacco grown in the Black Sea area)
Real Samsun, which cannot be successfully grown in any other part of the world, is considered by the Turks to be among the world’s finest tobaccos. It has a small leaf, is light in colour and has an extremely fine texture. It is generally used in pipe tobacco of superior quality.

Baffra
Basically the same type tobacco as Samsun. Baffra tobacco has small, red or darker brown leaves of fine texture and it gives off a very pungent odor. It is not quite as fine a tobacco as Samsun and is usually used to give flavor and aroma to all blends.

Trebizond
The other Trebizond tobacco has large, light red leaves of fine texture. Its taste is strong and it is very aromatic. The leaves are usually “topped” in the growing, which adds to their size and to their nicotine content. Most Trebizond is grown for local (Turkish) consumption.

Oriental tobacco

Tobaccos grown in former Yugoslavia
This region produces many varieties of oriental tobacco. The most outstanding are Prilep, Yakka and DjebeI. All three are Basma types and the most popular and widely-produced is the Prilep variety. The Yakka tobaccos are more delicate and are very similar to Greek Basmas. The Djebels are grown in rather restricted quantities and are very similar to the Bulgarian Djebels.

Tobaccos grown in the Black Sea zone
In areas surrounding the Black Sea, Georgia produces Sukhum (Sokhoum) tobacco, a strain from the Samsun seed. Grown in and around Sukhumi, some experts consider it the finest oriental grown anywhere.

Tobaccos grown in Bulgaria
Bulgaria produces in its Macedonian area oriental tobaccos (like Djebel) that are similar to the Basma and Bashi Bagli types of Greece.

*Phewww* ok, that were the different species of oriental tobaccos. In the older days they were widely used in pipe tobacco. Nowadays they are rare. No I say that wrong, they are not rare. Nowadays specific oriental tobaccos are hard to get. The real issue is the quantities pipe tobacco manufacturers have to purchase in order to get them. Most of the tobacco farmers in the regions I mentioned also grow other crops. Tobacco isn’t their only, or even their main source of income. Most produce only about 1000 kg or less per year. A lot in our ears, but not in tobacco manufacturer ears. Much of that 1000 kg is used in the production of local cigarettes. Almost all what is left gets mixed and piled up together and is sold to the big cigarette companies. The scraps often go to pipe tobacco companies. And many scraps of oriental tobacco still make… Oriental tobacco. That is why in many current mixtures an unnamed assortment of the exotic leaf is used.

Let´s quote master-blender GL Pease on this: If I wanted to get a container full of any particular variety, about 4.5-tonnes, it would be possible to do so, but consider the fact that there the US pipe tobacco market, overall, is only about 1600-tonnes, and the vast majority of that is OTC aromatics. That container full of Turkish leaf, used in a mixture that may comprise 15% oriental, would yield about 30-tonnes of finished product. It would take a lot more decades than I have left to recover the investment!
So he is bound to what a tobacco broker can offer him, instead of him buying specific oriental tobaccos.

Sun curing

This is kind of logical but oriental tobaccos are sun cured. The leaves are exposed to the sun to remove most of their moisture before being air cured to complete the process. Then they are stored in bales and allowed to ferment.

Now something about the use of oriental tobaccos in a blend. Orientals can have flavours that range from sweet to musty to buttery to floral. Since most of them have a pronounced flavour a little can go a long way. According to a German master-blender 30% on the whole of a mixture is the maximum. I would say that 25% is enough. But if you like a specific oriental you can also smoke it straight although I don’t recommend that. Together with some Virginias they really sing. If you smoke it in a blend halfway the bowl the oriental taste often is the strongest.

Recommended mixtures with lots of orientals are:
– Balkan Sobranie Original Smoking Mixture (by J.F. Germain)
– Dunhill: Early Morning Pipe*
– GL Pease: Cairo, Embarcadero, Caravan, Ashbury
– HU Tobacco Joschi’s Oriental Sunrise
– McClelland: Bulk No. 2025 English Cavendish, Bulk No. 2045 Oriental Mixture, Bulk No. 2050 Oriental Cavendish Mix, Bulk No. 2020 Matured Cake, Bulk No. 2030 #1 Grade Balkan, Oriental No. 12, Oriental No. 14, Grand Orientals series (a great way to get to know almost extinct orientals)
– McConnell: Old London Pebblecut (formerly made by Ashton), Oriental
– Peter Stokkebye: Balkan Sasieni, Balkan Supreme
– Presbyterian Mixture
– Samuel Gawith: Skiff Mixture, Sam’s Flake
– Tabaco Sentimiento Nacional Mezcla Oriental Fuerte

* Available in The Netherlands

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