Star of the east flake is still one of my favorites. Great for smoking in the wintery mountains of Japan.

I can say the ribbon cut improves tremendously after a couple of years in the cellar.

Thanks, Bradley! I finally saw ads during one of your videos. I hope this means you are being compensated somewhat for another quality contribution to tobacco hobbyists.

Excellent review Bradley. Thanks a lot.

Great review. Have a tin on the way. Looking forward to trying this soon. Thanks again.

I think I was one of the thousands that requested a review. Thanks. It was awesome as always. I love this tobacco I too.. also quiet knights. But I was disappointed by Penzance. I do like quiet nights more then SOTE.

Enjoyed your review. Bradley level. You are still the only one who does it this way and this good. Thanks for sharing your experiace. Stay well, Janez

Great review as always

Bradley, Very good review with some good insight. Star of the East is one of my favorite tobaccos. Because I can do more with it, I prefer the flake. Be well, Ken

Very nice Bradley excellent job on the full review. I'm gonna get a tin and try it out thanks Bradley you always give. Great review on the tobacco blends 😃😃😃😃😃👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 best regards peter.

I’ve had a tin of Star of The East ribbon cut for a year now, I look forward to popping it.

My favourite tobacco, period! Smoky, smoky, smoky! Love it!! :) Thanks for the review!

Excellent review. Thank you.

Terrific review, thanks! If you want a more consistent burn with fewer relights, my routine of gently rubbing it out...and that means *gently* ...yields a nice load of coarse ribbon-ish tobacco with, as mentioned, a portion of mostly Latakia dust. I find that letting it breathe and dry for 20-30 minutes really improves its behavior and burn consistency. Take a couple of seconds to separate the ribbons from the dust, load the ribbon first in 2-3 layers, gently tamp, and sprinkle the dust on top. The dust acts beautifully as kindling, and gives a nice flavor burst on the charring light. For me, it burns nicely down to a pinch of that hard, latticelike dottle. I don't feel like I'm wasting anything when I loosen and discard it; I think all the flavor has been enjoyed by then. I still say that back aroma/flavor is strongly reminiscent of the incense and old burned candle wax of a cathedral, not the creosote-like sense that I have enjoyed in other blends. I notice it especially in the retrohale, which SOTEF excels in. Whatever your palate tells you is the important thing, anyway. I do really really like this pipe-weed. BTW, in my reading up on the blend, the consensus seems to be that aging just doesn't have much of an effect on the flavor. I did grab a half-pound tin to squirrel away, but that's mainly because I like having an ample supply on hand. I guess I'll see at some point down the road if the many smokers' view that aging doesn't matter holds true for me.

One of my all-time favorites!!!!! Good stuff indeed.

I LOVE star of the east! I'd love to see your comparison of the flake compared to the bulk.

This is a great blend, flake and ribbon cut alike. I smoke this when Nightcap is too heavy.

Dear Bradley I really enjoy watching your reviews and like you am a huge fan of dunhill blends. I was wondering if you could do a review for blends that could replace dunhill blends in similarity such as Elizabethan, navy rolls, nightcap, 965 and London mixture. Many thanks Charlie

Hey, Bradley! Greetings from Argentina, I love your reviews. I've been looking for oriental-oriented blends (yeah, you read that right). I mean with orientals on the forefront or even pure oriental blends (pure Izmir, pure Basma, or 50/50). Is there any review on your list on a blend like that? Otherwise, what do you consider is the best blend to try/understand/enjoy orientals?

Love this blend 💣💣

It’s a very good blend! But I would say nothing like Penzance. Awesome review!

I have plenty of Penzance and plenty of all three versions of Star of the East (ribbon, flake, & gold). I keep 8 ounces of all 4 blends. I can honestly say that SotE ribbon tastes exactly like Penzance when you first light it up. But after about 1/3rd of the way down the bowl it completely changes and gets quite tart. Almost unbearably so. Now SotE flake tastes similar to Penzance but much stronger in the latakia and due to this I actually prefer it to Penzance (huge lat lover here). Latakia over time gets more tame. We all know this. So SotE Flake with a proper age on it will probably be the closest to Penzance out of all three. Now on to the SotE Gold . . . it is nothing like Penzance. The orientals are the main player in Gold. Not bad, but nowhere near as good as ribbon or flake. Hope this helps someone. Enjoy!

Have you had a Durango cigar. It's made with cigar and pipe tobacco leaf. Professionally hand rolled and they are aged with different things.

Please review and compare the bulk version.

Have you ever tried folding your flakes rather than rubbing them out? I'll take 2 flakes and fold them over and then roll them into a plug between my thumb and fingers and pop it in my pipe. Generally speaking, I find it makes my flakes smoke cooler and I don't over rub the tobacco then.

NOWAY NOHOW close to Penzance ! Needs to be aged didnt work well for me fresh !I did enjoy your take on it ,CHEERS !!

Crispy smell: Imagine smelling burning aromatic wood chips and a cool Autumn night.

Bro so glad you tried it I also have a problem getting down to the bowl with this one takes a lot of relights

Bradley, I've not tried this tobacco, but I'm going to! It's been a long time since I've had Penzance, but I wasn't crazy about it. When Sobranie baled on Smokers' Haven, Germain took over the production of their British blends, and their version of Krumble Kake was not as good as the Sobranie product. What made Balkan Sobranie unique was their use of Turkish Yenidje leaf, which deepened the Latakia. Krumble Kake was my wintertime smoke. Maybe Star of the East Flake c😮an be the same...after 45 years!

The ribbon cut version you can get in bulk, but not the flake.

Bradley you seem to be turning yellow my friend.... some thing up with the lighting?

I have had this blend for a week now. It's nice but too much work and mess rubbing it out. It's no 965 ! I taste more Latakia then any thing else. so it's kind of boring for me

I'll reconsider watching this review again minus, the commercial ad. 🎩✔ - However, Great Review ✔🎩🌳 (Latikia) BQ hickory Smokey? Best smoked in a dark soul's temple. 🌆🌇

I think part of why I prefer your reviews to some others in the YTPC is your vocabulary. You, appropriately, used vacillate where one might have used oscillate. And the adverb 'differently' where one might have incorrectly used 'different.' It makes a difference. I love Mutt'n, but his commentary is not as precise. Anyway, SOTE has knocked Byzantium out of pole position in my C&D rotation. I love the complex subtlety despite being 50% latakia. I am getting an almost cilantro-like note on the retrohale that I've not gotten out of any other mixture. I have to say, I don't know where you're getting creosote from. I'm in AZ - I KNOW creosote, and I'm getting zero of that.

Why keep comparing reviewed tabacco to "Esoterica's Penzance has become an elusive legend within the pipe community. ", that most of us will never enjoy?

I had the bulk ribbon a few years ago, it was terrible. Tobacco quality was not good, no taste whatsoever. I returned the rest to the earth. My opinion stay far away from bulk.