It's amazing what only a couple months of piping can do to help you understand the hobby. When you don't know any better, it's easy to rush online to gush, giving others the wrong impression. Well, after suffering through tons of chemical burn from one Mac Baren after another, I thought I should revisit Navy Flake, seeing how much I loved the flavour and didn't detect any burn at all...
... at least, then I didn't.
Now, smoking this new tin I bought, throwing the tobacco into one of my dedicated burley cobs, it hit me almost immediately: that horrible scorching of the mouth. I've learned the difference between tongue bite and mouth burn the hard way this past year, and it took a long time and a lot of practice to find out what was going on. That long list of chemicals used in the production of Mac Baren's Navy Flake could be a factor in this, and I can't see any other reason for it. Some have said they themselves don't experience the burn others like me do when smoking MB's tobaccos, but fairly warned is fairly armed, and I would hate to see others waste their money and burn their mouths, too.
My father's right when he called them the McDonalds of the tobacco world: all advertising and presentation and tin notes, but underneath it all a cavalcade of chemicals ready to do your insides wrong whether you can detect it or not.
I will never buy any of their products again, but instead support those companies that don't burn their customers, i.e. Peterson, C&D, D&R, etc.
