Tobaccos G. L. Pease - Union Square (Fog City Selection)

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Pipestud (1829)	2009-10-13		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Very Pleasant

Union Square is simply a remarkable tobacco with the potential (IMO), to be one of the all-time great "cellar" tobacco blends. Nothing here but pure sweet and strong Virginia leaf in broken flake form. This one knocks the socks off Gawith's Full Virginia Flake in that there is less tang, more strength and less chance of getting bit.

Arriving a bit moist in the tin I chose to let some fully rubbed out leaf sit in the open air for an hour before loading up. The grassy smell dissapated quickly and the tobacco, likewise, dried quickly. It was easy to load, light and keep lit. I was smothered by unrelenting waves of deep and rich Virginia flavor variances that never overwhelmed. I got the blast of nicotine punch (slapped with kid gloves really), with every puff.

Although not a "sweet" Virginia per se, this one has enough sugar content to make for a natural sweetness. I suspect it'll cellar like nobody's business (an accomplishment Pease strives for in his blends... with great past success I might add).

Union Square will soon rise to Superstar status (IMO, of course).

81 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	JimInks (3046)	2014-04-21		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

A variety of Virginias that are rich, creamy, fairly woody, bready and earthy with a touch of grass, sugar and floralness. The natural sweetness of the components are a mild tart and tangy citrus, some dried fruit, and a fair amount of red Virginia tangy dark fruit with a hint of spice. I don't know the proportions of the various Virginias in this flake, but I get nearly all of their intrinsic qualities with none crowding out the other in most every puff, though I would say the red Va. is the most obvious. The strength and taste levels are medium. The nic-hit is just past the center of mild to medium. Burns slowly, cool, clean and fairly dry with a very consistent, mildly sweet taste from top to bottom. No bite no matter how fast you can puff, though I recommend not over doing it or you risk a slight harsh note. It does require some relights. It does have a light rough edge. Leaves little moisture in the bowl. Has a lightly lingering, pleasant after taste. The room note is a tad stronger. It's not quite an all day smoke due to its strength, but it is repeatable.

-JimInks

65 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	zulujerk (146)	2011-09-18		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

In my review of Union Square, I had wanted to compare the blend with Full Virginia Flake. Well, you know how that goes. The ridiculous hoarding of Samuel Gawith tobaccos is one of the easiest things to hate about pipe smoking. It says something about the selfishness of some pipe smokers, those who will buy out every outlet in the US, and then take pictures of their stash, posting them on forums to brag of their booty. It makes me angry and indignant. Thankfully, Union Square cures my animosity for these people, if with a bit of irony, as Pease is in large part responsible for the modern practice of cellaring giant catalogs of tobacco.

The blend is flawless, in my opinion. Deep, rich Virginias in sturdy flake form, sugary and natural, emanating that familiar smell of hay out of the tin, the flakes themselves velvety to the touch, whether beat up or in perfect form (I've seen both, from the samples I've purchased). The presentation is immaculate, the experience, exceptional from the pop of the tin, through charing light, to the last embers as they fade from glowing red to dusty white. If Union Square isn't the king of Virginias, it's certainly next in line to the throne.

Now, aside from my earlier intention, a comparison to FVF isn't particularly fair, as Union Square's intrinsic characteristics demonstrate that it is certainly no clone of any variety, particularly one that should be forced to fall in the shadow of a crowd favorite. In truth, Union Square is a different beast than FVF, its austere simplicity, counterintuitively possesses a complexity which rivals that of FVF. Whereas FVF is dark and creamy, unfolding in layers that modulate throughout the smoke, Union Square possesses a lightness of flavor with tremendous clarity, and ever present grassy undertones that shape and shift with subtlety to define the character of flavor.

Union Square is a sugary smoke, with Bright Virginias in front. The taste is so uncharacteristically sweet, that it's hard to believe there is no casing. I suppose the defining element of FVF is the hot press, which really caramelizes the sugars and brings a more molasses note to the smoke. Union Square sports a narrower flavor profile with a similar strength, sugar cane opposed to molasses. Both avoid the sharp corners of inferior leaf, entirely absent of any bite.

The blend is more than a tobacco, it's a kind of ethos. I would really like to see a trend toward natural tobaccos, an appreciation for the baser qualities of the leaf. Maybe a movement toward pure, unadulterated leaf could put forth a breed of higher quality blends, pure of unnecessary additives. I would think that advances in agriculture would propel the movement, and we have seen limited trials--C&D themselves experimented with a Virginia blend that incorporated Agave as a natural additive, utilized, I think, to impede upon the growth of mold. I know that Union Square does not approach that extent of commitment, but one can be hopeful of future developments.

The noble properties of Union Square demonstrate a higher appreciation for blenders like GL Pease, who strive to innovate in the face of those who cling to established ideals. In their clouded thinking, hoarders rush to past touchstones and fail to recognize emergent trends and product. They are intent only in stocking shelves and cheering each other on in their mindless quest for more and more of the same product. I find them similar to art snobs, intent on the masters and established schools, incapable of acquiring new references, which they deem unrefined and unfamiliar. They seek defined models, and fear exploration as it may devalue the stockpiles of loot they have amassed. As consumers, they care little for the product they collect, and only the prestige in displaying their wares, hence the ridiculous photos on the internet.

This is an exaggeration, I know.

I've likely angered a few people here, and my intent is not to create a conflict, but to demonstrate the changing tides. Union Square raises the bar for microblenders, and the larger houses that predominate. The more recent imperfect batches of FVF and the supreme quality of Union Square exposes the artificiality of demand, as it demonstrates a commitment to scarcity and a rejection of standards and novelty on the part of pipe smokers. Do we really understand our practice, or are we no better than those in the field of fashion, who take to the popular trends? But I suppose the more blatant, practical question remains--how much are other apparently natural tobaccos masked by additives? As all industries are guarded by trade secrets, the answer shall remain elusive.

41 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-12-25		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Pleasant

The jury is still out on whether GLP blends age to become the classics they are purported to be, but the same jury (my jury!) has decided that, so far, GLP blends don't start off so well. This is my 10th attempt at finding a newly tinned batch of GLP that comes anywhere near a reference blend.

At first blush, the claim of "no added sugars or flavors" reads as a rash of codswallop and Nth-degree marketing hype, but I'm certainly in no position to dispute that claim. However, if true, this blend seems to indicate (when its at a young age, as my tin was) that straight virginias need such added sugars and flavors to taste and smoke to their potential. Not everything we ingest performs best in its pure, natural state. With all due respect to other reviewers and Mr Pease himself, I have to take the minority stance with this one. I find no depth or complexity in this blend, and no real mature virginia tobacco flavor. Instead this comes off as an extremely bland, "cigarette-ish" concoction that fails to excite. Comparing this to straight VA's from McClellands, Samuel Gawith and other blenders (that add sugars and flavors???), further and painfully illustrates Union Square's lack of character. It looks and smells in the tin like a winner but doesn't deliver where it counts - the taste.

As I have with the other GLP blends I've tried, I'm going to cellar my 2nd tin of this (dated 9/09) for a year or so in the hope that further aging will drive it up a notch or two. I'm happy that many others find Union Square so excellent and I certainly have questioned my own senses with this one since my experiences differ so. But I smoke and enjoy many classic straight virginias, and IMHO, this ain't one... at least not yet.

UPDATE 12/6/10

Still no love for this blend. If anything, it's become flatter and more anemic tasting. Two stars is more than enough. Back to the cellar and let's try this again next Christmas!

UPDATE 2/3/12

Age has been a wee bit kind to this one. I'd say it's elevated itself to mediocre. Still mostly characterless but there is a hint of cereal showing through that is rather nice. It's just too fleeting. Most of the time this fizzles into oblivion... smoke with no real flavor. Still a weak 2 stars. But it's a tiny bit better than it was. Perhaps this one will develop further. Worth a shot!

27 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	DrumsAndBeer (217)	2014-10-06		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

I only have a handful of straight Virginia’s in my rotation at the moment & Union Square is one of them. As far as flavor depth is concerned, it’s on par with a couple of my other favorites, FVF & Blackwoods Flake. However, I find Union Square to be a bit more complex and somewhat easier to work with. Comparatively, it has more of that wholesome, earthy Old Belt character with just a hair of natural sweetness found mostly in the side-stream and it does not rely at all on dark stoved tobacco for richness or sweetening agents as flavor enhancers.

I’ll admit, I do prefer sweeter & spicier Virginia mixtures which is what I love about Blackwoods Flake and FVF. I don’t find too much of these two attributes in Union Square but it does have a rich burley-like bottom end flavor that creates a different kind of equally enjoyable experience. Also, the taste of Union Square gets livelier and a hair sweeter as the bowl progresses and the sugars caramelize. This of course balances nicely with that aforementioned lower-end bravado.

Despite its relatively rich flavor profile, Union Square still deals in subtleties. Flavors change their direction in the tiniest of ways, yet it’s enough to continually peak my interest. It’s a wonderful combination of subtle toasted bread notes, with a hint of spice and a heaping dollop of rich earth for good measure. Bonus points added for performance as Union Square stays nicely lit at a slow cool smolder.

For honest to goodness unadulterated tobacco flavor, I’d say this blend knocks it out of the park. IMHO, it smokes best in a clean and preferably dedicated pipe. Also, it ages superbly.

Age When Smoked: 4

24 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-05-20		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Pleasant

This is unlike any Virgina blend I have ever tried, and I have been very happily puffing upon Virginias for a number of years. Yet, the fact that that this blend is so different from many others I love does not make it any less appealing. Who would have thought that a blend made exclusively of Virginia tobaccos could be so outrageously unique, especially when the pipe tobacco market is flooded with Virginia blends. This blend is rich, though so are many others. It is also spicy, but so again are many others (especially those featuring orientals). What stands out here is an exceptional earthiness that must be experienced to be understood. This earthiness comes together with the above mentioned spice and richness to produce a truly distinctive smoking experience. This is a blend to luxuriate in. You want complexity and depth? Here it is. Fans of the earthiness of dark-fired burleys may find this a welcome change of pace. And it goes without saying that any smoker who claims to love Virginias should give this blend a try. Those, like me, who fall into both categories may find an experience they had long been seeking. Union Square will, without a doubt, become a part of my regular rotation. I'm breaking in two brand new and highly prized pipes with Union Square as I type these words. The way I see it, these fine examples of the work of Lindner and Shalosky could not be treated with greater respect.

24 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	SteelCowboy (685)	2015-01-17		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

I smoke a lot of Virginia/Perique blends and love them, but I don’t have many straight Virginias that I enjoy on a regular basis. Union Square is one of the few. I tend to judge, fairly or unfairly, VaPer’s and straight Virginia’s buy how well they age. Union Square is decent after just a few months, but really shines for me after the five year mark and I am now opening tins squirrelled away from 2009. The tin note at this point is more sour and tangy than sweet or “hay-like.” The combination of thicker flakes (or sliced cake if you prefer) and broken flakes I prefer to leave as is and just stuff them into the pipe with a little shake to get the bowl going. The flavor is sweet and a bit complex for a straight Virginia. I really enjoy Sam Gawith’s Best Brown and as a reference point, I find Union Square to be more complex. And I prefer this much more than Gawith’s FVF in just about all areas. It burns cool and while Lady N is present, I wouldn’t call it strong. I prefer it most slowly sipped in a reverse calabash. Union Square, without any flavoring, smokes sweet and clean right to the end of the bowl. My only wish is that I had put away more tins each year than I did!

Pipe Used: Mainly in a Liskey or Negoita reverse calabash

Age When Smoked: 5 years

21 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Jorge Soler (202)	2015-11-21		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Very Pleasant

If it were up to me, I would have named this tobacco "Jazz Interlude." The tin note is fruity, mellow, sweet, and it sort of reminds me to Playdough, but I cannot detect any casing. These flakes look properly aged, have a fair amount of gold leaf, and I am loving GL Pease's no-nonsense easy-to-crumble approach to it. Even though the moist content might feel somewhat high, you can smoke them straight out of the tin. This tobacco is definitely for those seeking a straight unhindered Virginia experience. The leaf is easy on the palate and very slow burning, but rich, somewhat spicy and full of flavour at the same time. I particularly like how it evolves in different layers unlocking different undertones and flavours the more you progress with your smoke. Here I'd say this is a complex tobacco that it is easy to approach and very forgiving at the same time. I believe this tobacco should be appreciated for what is missing in its moments of silence and interlude, for the real music is being played as a dotted white line underlining the score or music sheet, as a prolonged pause in between high and low notes. And as I retro inhale, I find the room-note simply gorgeous. I really don't see how you could go wrong with this tobacco, so it is going to get 4 stars.

Edit1: Something that is important to note is the fact that this is not your ordinary straight Virginia tobacco. Because of the fact it comprises flue cured Virginias, it tends to be stronger and more full-bodied than your regular Virginia leaf. This is to say this is not your ordinary off-the-peg product. Rather, it has been technically produced, purposely made to cater for the few and not for the many.

Purchased From: 4Noggins

15 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Peter Piper (41)	2013-11-14		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

This is my first journey into GLP teritory and what a pleasant one it has been.

I am a bit bemused by the description as "sliced cake," but then again I'm English, so it may just be a matter of vernacular. What I do see is a very attractive long ribbon cut with shreds of real leaf pressed within it, a nice reminder that this did start life as a tobacco plant.

Sweet hay with a hint of honey on the nose, yep, this is a proper Virginia alright.

Once rubbed out a bit, packing, lighting and smoking are a doddle. And the gentle essence of the fine leaf wafts around your senses, at once fruity with a bit of tang, then just a touch of yeastiness and an almost creamy aftertone.

I suspect what may leave some reviewers underwhelmed - and forgive my impertinence - is that this is quite an un-American blend, the subtle nuances strike me as more characteristic of the type we find over on our side of the pond. If Mr Pease has Anglophile tendencies in his blending style, then that is absolutely fine by me!

Highly recommended.

14 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Dubinthedam (133)	2009-07-24		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Very Pleasant

This is the ticket. Benchmark stuff. Simply outstanding! Greg says on his website that he never intended to do a straight VA blend, and and then he goes and pulls off a gem like this.

Carefully select some quality VA leafs, press them, slice them and treat gently - place in a tin. Bingo.

I love my VA's and I love my flakes, if they have some perq, oriental or cavendish added that's fine too. I also love my Navy Flakes like Capstan or Marlin Flake because of that solid VA taste you get with hints of flavor and sweetness from a wee drop of Rum. But with U.S. you get so much sweetness and flavor without anything added...How did he do it?

This blend is what I expected FVF to be, although good - somewhat disappointed me. This is a flake every bit as good as Reiner's Long Golden Flake but it doesn't have any Burley or Perq added!

This blend is a wake-up call for McCleeland VA blenders, Greg's stolen their secrets and pushed it to another level. (A hint of Ketchup aroma from the tin).

This blend makes you wonder what other blenders are doing wrong. This blend is why I love pipe smoking. This blend is why I always say, "America leads the way in blending today".

A must try, must cellar blend. Put simply, dry or just try direct from tin, quality VA leaf with rich earthy hay, figs and citrus flavors, perfect in the tin, perfect half broken slices, plumes of smoke and the least bitey VA I've ever smoked. There is only one problem with this blend...it's too dam tasty to be able to leave in it a cellar for a few years....I'm off for another bowl...see ya.

14 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-05-29		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Very Pleasant

Pure. Virginia. Perfection.

No goopy additives, just pure tangy, naturally sweet Virginias. The red Virginias take a while to develop and the brighter tobaccos take center stage for the first quarter bowl (a tall, narrow Radice Rind chimney billiard now dedicated to this tobacco only).

Will seem bitey to Virginia newbies, or those more accustomed to cased and flavored flakes....patience, grasshopper. You will be rewarded with a slow cadence.

The red virginias jump up and say howdy about halfway through, and the caramel notes merge with the citrusy brights quite nicely.

End game is divine, especially if you give the pipe a brief rest. Very rich, clean and suprisingly sweet, in a natural way...quite unlike highly cased flakes. Not a bit of gloppy dottle. Few relights, and even fewer pipe cleaners required to finish a large bowl.

A definite keeper in bulk quantities.

10 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	pipesINpairs (19)	2021-07-14		Mild	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Very Pleasant

Union Square, you are to me

what every blend aspires to be.

Vaper, burley, English too -

none of them compare to you.

In you I get just what I see,

a complex of simplicities!

Your golden honey-brightened hue

is matched by fig and fruit of stew.

Your silky, earthy notes of tea

are zested by the lemon tree.

The reds and yellows cured by flu

in time great riches will accrue:

one year in you is much as three

another blend would have to see,

and when I pop your seal at two,

delightful spices issue through.

But at year five, maturity

deepens your complexity;

that tart and tang when you were new

are softer, yet still in the roux.

Some cocoa now and chocolate sweet -

luxurious, if subtle treat!

Like sculptures of antiquity

in ten years time you still will be

as poised as maidens once I knew

(who now resemble rat and shrew).

Forever true and never mean,

Union Square, you are my Queen!

The wisest thing a man can do

is purchase not one tin but two!

9 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	quantumboy (130)	2009-06-01		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

Pease Pilgrimage Reviews (a tasting journey through every GLPease blend) Tin date: 05/17/09

This is a delicious, destined to become (or already is) a classic, and all you Virginia-neat fans out there need to stock up!

Aroma: Sweet, tangy, tart, fruity, delicious! Want to eat it out of the tin. There are a few pure Virginias that have a pineapple/tropical fruit aroma going on when the tin is first popped, and this is one of them. My tin has been opened (and jarred) since May 2009, I'm still dipping regularly out of the jar, and it still has that sweet delicious aroma.

Appearance: Not a neat and clean geometric flake like FVF, US is a busted-up flake with some good-sized chunks that need to be rubbed out. It's a bit darker in color than, say, OGS, but not as dark as FVF which I understand is stoved.

Pipe 1: Stanwell Vario Billiard Pipe 2: Meer Bent Billiard Pipe 3: Chubby Savinelli Author

Flavor: Classic straight Virginia, sweet, musty, pure and toasty. Very delicious. One needs to use good Virginia-smoking methods to coax the best flavors out of this – like any other pure Virginia – but the reward is a classic, delicious, rich and sweet smoke for times of gentle contemplation. I can't smoke this stuff while pre-occupied with other tasks. I need to concentrate and think of uplifting things while I sip this treasure.

Yesterday I smoked it back to back with FVF, my other go-to VA. Which is best? Sorry to disappoint but I can't say. It's one of those mood things. FVF is darker and richer, more low-end notes, more earthiness. Not as sweet. Not quite as forgiving but fuller in flavor. US is sweeter, toastier, a bit brighter and grassier, with a more approachable flavor. FVF is British, US is American. FVF is Tom Waits, US is James Taylor. I love ‘em both, enough to keep adding both to my stash in whatever quantities I can afford.

9 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	pinko (52)	2016-08-28		Medium	None Detected	Mild	Tolerable

Union Square is boring, flat, and only propped up by Pease's reputation. It starts as hot air and ends with barely more satisfaction than the beginning. Pease isn't known for straight Virginias, and C&D is better known for handling Burleys and Perique than pure VA. Nothing about this blend plays to either the blender's strengths or the manufacturers.

I consider it a cut rate, uninspired copy of bulk McClelland 2010. I'd recommend any of McClelland's Mature Virginia tins over this. Folks who buy it hoping it will age into a beauty forget the first law of buying tobacco: never cellar a bad tobacco hoping it'll turn into a good one.

Also, the cigarette room note is impossible if you're not fond of how coffin nails smell.

Pease should stick to Latakia mixtures.

Age When Smoked: 12 months

8 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2010-09-18		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Right outside our lazy summer home, with winds a mile long the smell of this pure Virginia tobacco wafts through the air. I smoked a ton of Virginia flakes. This one gives you all you need. Pure tobacco taste. Perfect with morning cafe, or an Italian soda after lunch. Or really searching out the different lip smacking taste late night by the fire. I have two other pure Virginia blends that I put in my Nording freehand, make that three. I wasn't looking for another pure Va, I thought I had the two I would ever need. Im glad I found Union Square. This one will undoubtedly withstand the test of time.

8 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Monarchist (4)	2009-07-01		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

Despite my resolution not to open another tin while I still had so many open, this new offering from GLP simply wouldn't stop calling to me, and so I eventually gave in.

To say that I was hugely disappointed would be putting it mildly. The tin aroma was a cross between horse manure and wet sweetgrass, while the smoke tasted like wet hay - very much like what I experienced with PS Luxury Bullseye Flake. Up until this point, my only experience with "pure" Virginia was SG FVF which, along with SG BB, is one of my favorites. We all know that tastes vary from individual to individual, but the fact that this blend has received nothing but accolades from the pipe smoking community thus far has me puzzled to no end.

After the initial shock of the first part of the bowl, I set it down and returned to it the following day, hoping that DGT would perhaps change the experience for me towards the better. Well, change it did, but for the better? Only if I can count the by and large departure of the "wet hay" taste, which was replaced by very little taste of anything at all.

After having given this blend a chance (3 bowls) I will say that I experienced little if any bite from it, but that's about it. Additionally, after opening the tin, each pipeful in succession did become a bit more tolerable, so maybe the trick is to let oxygen do it's thing with this blend?

Again, I admit to being very puzzled. There could be one answer though which I'm leaning towards - that almost all tobaccos have at least casing, if not topping. If I understand the advertising from GLP for this blend, it has neither. It's entirely possible that I'm considerably more reliant on casings and toppings for my smoking enjoyment than I cared to admit?

================================

Follow-up:

WOW! This tobacco is so utterly strange. Granting that I am rather new to the pipe smoking experience, and that taste is subjective, I have to say that this is the first DGT only tobacco I've run across.

In a fit of frustration, I loaded a small bowl, toasted the heck out of it, and laid it aside. About six hours later, I picked up the pipe again and set fire to the tobacco. It caught and burned beautifully, producing the rich, sweet smoke that everyone's been raving about. How can a tobacco that tastes so crummy to me straight from the tin, taste so good toasted and delayed?

Regardless, I now understand what pipe smokers refer to when they speak of complexity as pertains to the taste of a given tobacco. I used my normal flake smoking technique, that is, sipping the smoke gently. There was no hint of bite, and the smoke produced sweet, nutty, and earthy flavors that vied with one another at first, but then settles down, each to claim a portion of the bowl. The sweetness came first, and then gave way to a hard to describe earthy flavor that was sort of spicy, but not perique spicy. The latter part of the bowl produced a nutty, smoky flavor with slight overtones of the previous two.

This tobacco leands itself to nasal exhalation very nicely, and I also enjoy filling my mouth with the smoke and just holding it there. The aftertaste is simply marvelous.

Again, I'm amazed at how a bit of "handling and preparation" in setting this tobacco up for DGT changes it's character and enjoyability. I do intend to experiment a bit with this blend. I'm going to toast a portion outside the pipe, perhaps in a skillet, on high heat and quickly. I'll post the result later.

I'm going to stock up on this, as it is now one of my absolute favorites. Go figure...

8 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	PipeTobaccoReviewer (12)	2020-02-19		Mild	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Unnoticeable

Overall I’m really impressed with this blend. Even with the youthful edge C&D production has until they get a few years under their belt, this is highly enjoyable. Sweet cream mixes with the red spice which, as is the usual with C&D reds, presents with a light cinnamon note which compliments the blend as a whole. There are hints of hay and a spritz of citrus that play around in the background, but primarily it’s the creamy cinnamon sugar. The repeatability of this blend is very high; I’ve been smoking essentially nothing else since I received my tin, multiple bowls a day. No fatigue to be found. A generally cool smoking blend which takes a light well and burns, without fail, to the heel.

As I said in the opening, this does have some edges to it which I expect will smooth out with a couple of years in the tin. However, even at just 7 months, I’m enjoying this a great deal. I’ll be adding many more tins of this to the cellar, both to smoke now and years in the future. Reasonably priced in the mid $11/2oz, you can get the price down some by buying the 8ozers. However, it’s a negligible difference to me and I prefer to have the ability to open a tin at a time and smoke through it while leaving the others to keep doing their thing.

This is a Highly Recommended blend, even with the edges it has. I feel confident that with a couple of years this will be a truly top shelf VA filled with enjoyment and contentment to smoke.

Pipe Used: Sav 802 and 702

Age When Smoked: 7 months

Purchased From: smokingpipes.com

7 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	BingCrosby (162)	2018-06-05		Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Why did it take me so long to try this? I guess having had a bad experience with odyssey.. then kind of lukewarm results with haddo's delight, i kind of did shy away from pease thinking it just wasn't my bag... big mistake. Instantly union square has become a favorite of mine.. and maybe the perfect spring/summer tobacco.. Many have compared it to fvf.. and with good reason.. although it has vastly different smoking mechanics.. something about it is very evocative of the gawith flake.. Maybe it's the creamy hay/fig/grass like quality.. combined with a caramelized pastry sweetness.. or something like that.. Must be sipped slowly.. which can be challenging when you are enjoying the enormous flavor.. My tin was only 4 months old and it had a little rough and tart spice to it that wasn't unpleasant at all.. I can only imagine what 5-10 years would do to this.. considering the availability of the gawith flakes, this would be an easy pick for stocking up on.

7 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2015-11-16		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable to Strong

The flakes are drier than my benchmark Samuel Gawith, and drier than the Mac Baren HH Pure Virginia tin I finished before this one. In light of that, it's strange to me that Union Square smoked substantially wetter than any other straight Virginia I can think of. It bubbled incessantly, and left several pipes needing a cleaning.

There's also a cigarette smell that reminds me of Briar Fox, and that I associate with young C&D Virginia. The flavor is all high and tangy, lacking depth and body. I won't speculate on the quality or age of the raw leaf, but I don't think the cakes were aged long enough.

Age When Smoked: 2 months

7 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	derlict311 (71)	2015-06-28		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild	Pleasant

There's something about the pressed flake that GLPease uses that works so well for Union Square. I suspect that if Union Square was finely cut, like Montgomery, it wouldn't be quite as good. As a flake, it's incredible for what it is. That said, it is extremely easy to rub out flake. The strength of it is surprisingly strong for a Virginia, too. To me, this is the absolute best tasting Virginia flake/blend out there. I don't know exactly how he blends this but I suspect all forms of Virginia's are used because it has its own unique signature. Sweet, grassy, dark, pure Virginia tobaccos and nothing else. I keep going back to the word "clean" when I smoke it. It tastes clean. And as always, it's better with age.

P.S. For the record, I read zero of the previous reviews on it before I wrote my review. I find it amusing that so many of us are using the adjective "clean" to describe it and must add that if so many people hold it in this high of regard, Union Square must deliver a consistent experience.

Pipe Used: Lots

Age When Smoked: 2 -3 years, new

Purchased From: Pipestud

Similar Blends: Dunhill Flake?.

6 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Voyaging (80)	2020-09-20		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

Based on a tin with one year of age.

Appearance is pretty bright, very light brown to darker brown. They aren't really like full flakes. They're assembled the best way possible for them, and not pressed as firmly as the European flakes are. They're broken flakes, easy to rub out if you want. It comes on the dry side, but it's not really as dry as you think, and you realize that once you start crushing it up and rubbing it out. There is some moisture there. The tin note was kind of tangy and bready, and some light hint of dried fruit.

I've commented on how I like C&D Virginia flakes. They are rustic, and lean towards dry and earthier than the European productions. I would also liken it to something like terroir.

The beginning of the bowl starts of tangy, sometimes sharp, fermented fruit, and some floral hints. The second third gets more bready. Things start to caramelize. There are some spice notes like pepper, and some baking spices like cinnamon and nutmeg and some bitter notes occasionally (which I like). There is a dry woodiness that accompanies everything and makes this more interesting than its competitors. It's something I like about Interlude also. The flavor doesn't get as deep as Interlude though. It has the same earthiness and nuttiness though, which also adds to the intrigue and tastiness. The final third gives smokey woody notes, a dry vanilla, fig, and more baking spice notes. This never feels like an overly sweet blend. There is a lot of sweetness, but they are sweet flavors, and not the overly sweet sensation of sweetness. Again, it's not like the European productions of Virginia flakes.

The taste is somewhere around medium to full, and so is the body. This also produces more smoke than many Virginia flakes, but that might be due to the lack of moisture in the tobacco. The nicotine is mild to medium. It's there, but never overwhelms. This straight Virginia delivers on all fronts. You get many different flavors a Virginia is capable of delivering. But, it's not like many others on the market. It's on the drier and earthier end of the spectrum, balanced with sweetness. I would highly recommend this to the person that likes a blend that develops and evolves in the bowl, and any straight-Virginia smoker would find something to love here. Four stars.

Pipe Used: Canadian,Bent Brandy

Age When Smoked: ~one year

Purchased From: 4noggins

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Goose55 (33)	2018-09-02		Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

I'm not sure who pointed out this blend as one I ought to explore after McClelland closed, but I'm glad they did. There is some of that good old McClelland sweet and sour interplay which I love, and good depth. Flakes are soft and easy to rub out but needs some drying time.

Edit: 4/13/2019: I just cracked a tin from 2016. The tin was swollen and opened with a swoosh, like a soda can. This is my first bowl after halting the fermentation process. It's good. Way better than fresh. Smoother. Creamier. Sweeter.

This is really a very very good straight Virginia and may be a good blend to try if you've been seeking to (at least part way) fill the void of the absence of McClelland Virginias. As another friend would have said, "It doesn't have any Perique and it doesn't need any."

Pipe Used: A commissioned artisan bent Scoop

Age When Smoked: Fresh

Purchased From: 4Noggins

Similar Blends: McClelland Red Virginias.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	StevieB (2080)	2018-04-19		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

G. L. Pease - Union Square (Fog City Collection).

I keep a rotation for the mornings in my kitchen, to accompany my morning espresso. I finished my tin of McClelland Brindle Flake so I popped this open. Nowhere near as tangy as the Brindle, but of the same high standard!

The flakes had become stuck together but when I tried to remove one I realised, as it crumbled at the lightest touch, the tobacco had gained the build of a kake, rather than actual flakes. Hydration's great.

The smoke. The flavour's a bit 'fresher' for the first part of a bowl but it isn't 'sharp'; mild hay instead of citrus and grass. There's a little sweetness, some cream, and a subtle tanginess which begins to come through as a bowl's smoked. The burn's medium in temperature and relaxed in speed. I find there's no tongue bite to be had from it.

Nicotine: below medium. Room-note: pleasant enough.

Union Square? A firm four stars:

Highly recommended.

Pipe Used: Peterson System #312

Age When Smoked: Stamped 5/4/17

Purchased From: 4noggins

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	SunriseBoy (21)	2017-04-06		Mild	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

I can understand the drum beating and flag waving on this one. I got two 8oz tins from Rich at 4noggins and was glad I did. Good smoke. Burns well and easily with only one relight for me. (But I had to go and tend to my Chicken Kiev I had going on the stove). Very pleasant taste and note. Good body without the nicotine buzz. Just the kind of strength for nicotine snowflake like me. A good all day number. Highly recommended.

Pipe Used: Cobs

Age When Smoked: 12.9.16 on the can

Purchased From: 4noggins

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	steppx (186)	2016-06-11		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Pleasant

Not that another review is needed here, but I will add one anyway. I love straight virginias of all sorts and this is among the best. And no doubt it will age well. Its a surprisingly weighty Va for sure, and needs to be packed carefully. But it delivers a creamy smooth but still substantial smoke. All those fire cured leaves gives it great character and yet its not at all harsh. Its not really ever spicy -- but teeters on it. Solid nic hit, too. Might need a re-light or two...and its best to let it sit out and dry a bit before smoking the first bowl. But this is first rate stuff. And I find myself reaching for this more than I might have thought.

Purchased From: 4noggins.

Similar Blends: A bit like Butera's flakes in terms of taste..

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2016-04-10		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

This is a superb blending of light and dark Virginias in cake form. My tin has little age on it, but tasted sublime from the first light. It rubbed out with ease and smoked cool and dry from start to finish. The nicotine, although higher than I'm used to, was very tolerable. The taste is elegant and smooth. I can only imagine what a year or two would do. Unlike most Virginias I've tried, there is little if any tang or sharpness. The slight sweetness is all natural and a welcome addition. I think that Greg has created a masterpiece in this blend and I intend to order a few tins for aging.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	moniker (220)	2013-10-04		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

GLP's Union Square may be more "forgiving" than their Laurel Heights, but it still demands some attention to preparation, loading, packing and smoking before it relaxes and gives up its considerable goods, notwithstanding its "easy" appearance and almost cloying aroma when the tin is popped. In the tin, presentation is beautiful, merely-moist, mottled, soft flakes that I cannot spindle and fold into a pipe before they fall to rough, chunky "ribbons". The note from a young tin is barely damp silage under truly yummy, sweet, blended VA tobaccos, with the brights upfront. With age, add fermented notes of pineapple, apricots and golden caramel, along with distant fresh yeast and a drop or two of rum.

Union Square is one tobacco I prefer to smoke very dry, to the point where it's "crispy". Smoked "wet", and especially if it's rushed, it can get harsh, and/or soot winds up in the air hole, and/or one might detect a faint trace of ammonia in the air. OTOH, smoked very dry, and with some consideration, barely sniffing light puffs, it makes clouds of clean and bracing VA TOBACCO smoke that features most of the tin notes, and the taste follows suit. It does require some attention as it is smoked, or it will go out; but there is no penalty - at all - for re-lighting it.

After a short trial period, US has smoked well for me, and it keeps getting better as it is smoked down. The aftertaste is - surprise - delicious VA tobacco, sweet but not saccharin, never bitter, with no ash. I love it. Nicotine is like Laurel Heights, which is to say, stealthy, building quite slowly toward "strong" over the course of a bowl and thereafter. It only took me a couple of tries to learn to hold off with a second bowl.

While it's hardly a no-brainer, I find US quite relaxing and very satisfying, along the lines of several other Pease blends I enjoy. Highly recommended to those who feel up to the "challenge". And aging just makes it better...

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	WmZiggy (81)	2009-12-05		Extremely Mild	None Detected	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Pleasant

I am still thinking about this a day later. After openning the tin I let it dry for several hours before smoking. Lightly rubbed out then smoked for over an hour. Light, naturally sweet with some complexity, it never bit the tongue or overheated the briar. This was high qulity Virginia tobacco. Burned down to a fine grey/white ash.

29 April 10

I am downgrading my recommendation two stars on this, and making it 'extremely mild' in strength, and 'flat' in taste. I don't think it's just me, but this tobacco is too flat, as least for what I enjoy in a VA flake. My tin has set for 6 months now, not a lot of age for a VA, but the sweetness/compexity that this flake had when new is gone and it has become a rathering boring smoke. I don't think aging will improve it, as aging tends to round out any sharpness, and this flake needs some "edges" to make it interesting. Perhaps a good flake for the beginner or those liking a very mild smoke.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-05-29		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

I love trying a new GLP blend, Whether it makes it to my rotation or not, Every blend is interesting, complex, and well put together. This comes in a cut flake form, and on poping the tin smells organic and rich. For me, this is best packed after a couple hours to air. Pipe used was a Bing's Favorite dedicated to Virginias. This Virginia symphony is not sweet by any stretch, It's very earthy at its base- Like Wheat. There is a combining flavor thats a bit sharp, like hops in an IPA- This would be a great smoke on a hot day with a beer. The burn rate is nice and consistant, not too hot, few relights. Faster cadance brought more hoppy like spice, while breath smoking almost reached a nice ale like body. The strength is what I would deem a medium, and the finish was clean and dottle free. My tin was two weeks old, but I imagine this will age nicely given the conditions in the tin and the Virginias sed, but it is fine from the starting gate. I would recomend this as an all the time smoke, but I also plan on aging a few a few years to see how it matures.

5 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	HabaneroHardy (401)	2022-07-09		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Unnoticeable

This one I apparently bought back in August of 2021 with a date code of 123120. This is a broken flake and has a pleasant smell of hay/grasses, etc. I have been enjoying this in my Altinay Meerschaum Poker and like the fact that I am tasting pure Virginia leaf if you believe the description and from the taste of this wonderful blend I do. Straight forward? Yes, that is what makes smoking this so pleasurable. Starting out I get the bready, sweetness of the Red Virginias and further down the bowl the other Virginia tobaccos seem to seek attention. Does this have a lot of bells and whistles? No, but for a really outstanding Virginia this cannot be beat. I wish I had a few tins of this to age but my cellar is full at the moment.

Pipe Used: Altinay Meerschaum Poker

Age When Smoked: 1.5 years

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	DrAcula (62)	2021-01-01		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Very Pleasant

Presentation: All labels in the Fog City Selection look the same. A gold stripe across the bottom, a white background, with a gray sketching of the streets of San Francisco.

Cut: Comes in small flakes , just right moisture, easy to rub out.

Tin note: Has a rich fruity, bready smell.

Tasting notes: This blend tastes grassy, bready, a bit spicy, tangy, slightly smoky, minutely sweet. Deep earth, a bit tart, and woody on the finish. Simple but delicious.

Mechanics: N/A -- A well behaved blend.

Extra Remarks: This is a great blend. With this being my final review in the Fog City Selection, I feel it's fitting that it happened to be a straight Virginia blend because I think Greg Pease made this whole series to display his deft hand with the Virginia leaf. This blend is a rather straight shooter, not too complex or unique, but that is not the purpose of this blend. The Virginias are quality and Pease brings so much out of just one type of leaf in this blend. A delightful "anytime" kind of smoke and I can say no wrong about it. 4 stars.

Pipe Used: IMP Straight Billiard Meer

Age When Smoked: 1 month

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Antonius Blok (192)	2020-10-23		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

This tobacco marks a before and after in my short history as a pipe smoker. I hope veterans excuse me for the obviousness I'm about to write, but now I know that there are straight virginias that can fit into my usual rotation, that a straight virginia doesn't have to be bland, nondescript, flat and monotone. I have tried some va/per that more closely match this description.

With a broken flake cut (although the description says they are flakes), they appear when opening the tin shiny and ripe virginias with the characteristic smell of sweet hay, where I believe I perceive a certain spicy nuance. When the tobacco is turned on, the flavors of toast, cereals, nuts and certain sweet touches are displayed that intensify as the smoke progresses, with some almost honeyed nuance at times. And from what connoisseurs say, this does not have any type of casing, those flavors are natural! It burns well and evenly, without requiring too many re-ignitions. It should be smoked with a slow cadence so that it does not become monotonous, something that should be done with all tobaccos, although that rule is not always (and I the first) taken into account.

Of course, with this tobacco I prefer to pay attention to the smoke, without performing a task at the same time that can distract me from the sensations it produces.

02/27/2023: I've smoked a lot of tobaccos and a lot of virginias since writing this review and I haven't seen any that look like Union Square, which makes it a unique tobacco for me...

Pipe Used: Jan Kloucek Italy Silhoutte

Age When Smoked: 1 year and 7 years

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Napping Puppy (25)	2017-09-28		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

This is simply a superb morning blend. It easily ranks among the best straight Virginia tobaccos, the likes of FVF, Blackwoods Flake, and Dunhill Flake. However, Union Square shines best after some aging.

It is a natural tobacco that is quite efficient in putting the smoker in a really tranquil mood. When aged properly, its sweetness would evolve into sour creaminess of the sort that each Virginia lover craves for. Highly recommended.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Alhaji (33)	2015-11-26		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

At the beginning of the smoke, this seemed like a plain, ordinary Virginia, neither sweet nor creamy; but after mid-bowl, it became slightly creamier and a tad sweeter. Yet, IMHO, it did not seem to have the kind of depth to differentiate it from the many Virginias out there in the market. Besides, I had to re-light ever so often that I almost gave up on it altogether.

As I said when I reviewed The Virginia Cream, I have not smoked that many GL Pease (GLP) blends so I am unable to compare it with other GLP Virginias. Incidentally, I've recently been smoking Mac Baren's Virginia Flake Cut and it seems to have more depth that Union Square.

Since the popular opinion is that GLP blends benefit tremendously from aging, I'll put this away and return to it in a couple of months.

I'll settle for a two and half star for now.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	gladi8tor96 (143)	2015-09-24		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

First time smoking a blend from the Fog City Collection. Beautiful broken flake that is light brown with specs of dark and yellow throughout. Smells hayishly sweet with notes of earth and slight fruit in the tin.

I have smoked this with loading it straight in the bowl and rubbed out. Both seem to work well for packing and lighting. Stays well lit either way and produces good amounts of smoke.

This should be sipped to allow the flavors to be enjoyed. The flavors are very natural. There is natural sweetness. Natural Tobacco and earth tones with just the tiniest delicate spice. Sometimes I caught hints of citrus and a bit of tang now and again. It is a wonderful tobacco. Quite the deviation from the other G.L. Pease blends I'm accustomed to, but I think he knocked a 'straight virginia' blend out of the park. I could detect the balance between the reds and light virginias. And it burns down to a nice white powdery ash (I often read reviewers talk about this, but have never experienced it like this blend provided...it really ends up as a white ash powder). I thoroughly enjoy this blend and plan to cellar some when I get the chance.

I did mention that this is similar, at least to me, of Orlik Golden Sliced, however, this blend differs in the fact that the sweetness is not as pronounced or manufactured. After smoking more of an aged tin, along with trying some other straight VA flakes, I have some more notes to add.

Between FVF and BWF, I would say that this blend is a bit brighter and toastier. I would even dare say more sharp. It can bite, usually during lighting, but is not a tiger in the pipe. It's a good tobacco but doesn't have the deep and dark or soft tones that both FVF and BWF have. This is a top quality VA blend closer to Renier's or Orlik's.

Pipe Used: Cob, Billard

Age When Smoked: Tin Age 11/2014 (Just under a year)

Purchased From: Smokingpipes.com

Similar Blends: Orlik Tobacco Company A/S - Golden Sliced (Red), Samuel Gawith - Full Virginia Flake, McClelland - Blackwoods Flake (Personal Reserve).

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	TallPuffO'Burley (633)	2013-08-07		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

Original Review 8-7-2013

I purchased a tin of this around christmas 2012 and wasn't overly impressed when I first opened this in Feb 2013, but by Late March I was really starting to enjoy it and found it slowly becoming one of my favorite Va blends. Although it won't supplant Dunhill Flake from the top of my rotation, I still highly recommend it and find it worthy of four stars as it is different enough from DF that there is room for both.

Greg Pease's objective with this blend was to make a very natural VA and he succeeds in his attempt as it appears to me to be as natural as is possible. This one will come off as pretty harsh if smoked mindlessly or too fast, it is meant for the slow meditative puff. It also has a surprisingly high nicotine content which was something I was not expecting from such a low processed light colored leaf.

I look forward to buying some more of this in the big cans and aging them. Something tells me this will age beautifully.

Update 5/6/2020

I just finished the second tin since the review above and have a few more yet in the cellar for later smoking pleasure. I am knocking a star off for now and the reason is kind of long and complicated to explain. This is something I almost did after finishing the first tin following that review, but decided not to at that time and am glad I did wait as I would have taken it down a couple of stars at that time.

This blend has clearly changed since I first smoked it in 2012 and I wish that I would have written down the tin date of that tin I purchased in 2012. The change I believe is a response to the mold problems that plagued Cornell and Diehl. It has been openly acknowledged that they do things differently now so as to avoid the problems they had in the past.

Now back to that second tin. I popped it and it had a large mold growth in it. I reached out to Laudisi and they graciously replaced the tin promptly. This happened after the change. Upon opening the new tin, the smell was much different than I previously noted. It had an off smell. Not the hay/citrus fresh smell of Virginia that I previously encountered. The new smell was closer to decomposing vegetation and not too different from that of compost.

I don't know what it was but I did not like it. Shortly after this I noticed that every new CD or Pease Va heavy blend had the same smell. As many of these were rum topped, I first thought that was the culprit and that the Union Square must now have that same topping. I have since come to the conclusion that this is just the way their virginia smells after processing. Whatever the case, I did not like it.

But what to do. Well, the answer, it turns out, is to wait. I recently opened another tin that had aged 5 years and the smell did not have the same effect on me. I don't know if it just mellowed with age or if I have just gotten used to the smell having smoked several of these Virginias since then. It is probably a combination of both. While I enjoyed this tin much more than the last, neither was as good as the first. I feel it can no longer hold up to the Virginias that I have rated 4 stars. Thus, it is now a three star blend. Good, but I have several better options in my cellar.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	NEWMAN (305)	2010-05-03		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable

A nicely prepared flake that although moist from the tin, packed easily. The intial light was a bit more difficult than others but no relights were needed. Smoked cool and without bite or condensation. I found the taste rather flat although I typically smoke Va/Pers. It also left my mouth extremely dry after each bowl and that spoiled any enjoyment for me.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	MDP (39)	2010-02-08		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable to Strong

This review is after 15 bowlfuls over several months. Yellow sticker on tin bottom has an October 28, 2009 date. Moisture seemed just right in these supple, small flakes, but further drying proved necessary. There is an aroma of mild fermentation (fig-like, touch of vinegar and baking spices). This was quite easy to fold and load. Rubbing out the flakes turned out to be a better move than smoking whole flakes or cutting “cubes.”

Not a one or two vesta affair lighting and regular relights were necessary (which can raise the possibility of tongue-bite). Flavor initially is mild and hay-like. Five minutes into the bowl and the flavor deepens to subtle sweetness, complexity and familiar Virginia flavors. Union Square reminds me immediately of Rattray's Virginias (this is not always good, in my opinion) and maybe something like SG BBF and Old Gowrie, but heavier than BBF. There is some richness, too. The room note will not win admirers unless they like the aroma of better cigarettes.

USq requires great care to keep the burn temperature low as possible. Otherwise, this flake will bite me as badly as Mac Baren Virginia No. 1, Marlin Flake and Fillmore. Contra-intuitively, this required a full rubbing up of the flakes. I believe this allows more smoke volume, thus flavor, when gently drawing the smoke in and out of the pipe (some call this “sipping”). If I smoked this in a gentle breeze, I'd opt to keep the flakes chunky. Harder puffing for flavor proved painful.

On the nicotine continuum, USq is somewhere between Old Gowrie and Hal O' the Wynd. USq burns cleanly to a mottled ash.

Somewhat recommended now. Perhaps time in a sealed tin will prove beneficial, but I am on the fence if I will invest time and cellar space to the experiment, as it does not replace or add anything missing to my regular rotation.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	strongirish (249)	2009-09-13		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

I have been on a VA kick of late! I have been trying to smoke all the major VA's in the market and of course I had to try this one especially as it is one of the few uncased tobaccos on the market. So, I opened the tin and took a good long sniff of the pouch aroma and was rewarded with a nice soft vegetal aroma, something like hay but a little more rich than that. It comes in partially rubbed flakes of a medium brown color. I took the flakes and kind of rolled them like I would a full flake and loaded them in a Castello that I have been just smoking VA's in and proceeded to light it. It took several lights to get it going, but once lit, I settled back with it and a freshly ground cup of dark coffee. I liked it from the very start. A smooth sweet hay like flavor with not even a hint of any added to it and absolutely no bite. It remained bite free throughout the bowl. It burned clean and fresh and all the way down to the bottom of the pipe, leaving a medium grey ash with no dottle or moisture. Just a powder was left. After my first bowl, I just had to have another, I just loved the nice simple sweet taste it left on my tongue. The room aroma is somewhat like cigarette smoke but with a sweeter, smoother scent and to me was pleasureable. With my third bowl and much more coffee, I just have to say, this is a very nice VA, it leaves a nice aftertaste and it is just a pleasure to smoke. I am going to put some away to age for awhile as I know it will get better. This one is for those that just want to taste the tobacco and is not looking for anything else in their smoke. I highly suggest trying it!

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Beer (345)	2009-09-12		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

I don't usually care if a Virginia flake is actually not pure Virginia but contains something else (a touch of burley, a hint of cavendish, or other condiments) as long as it tastes good. For the same reason, I don't mind casing and flavoring agents, as long as they are not intrusive and/or actually help to enhance the tobacco ending up in a still rather natural tasting experience. For example, I like several of the more conservative Mac Baren blends which are obviously treated with sugar, molasses and honey: they taste good, and that's enough for me.

Anyway, I was curious to try whay Greg would pull out of the magician's hat with this one. Pure Virginia, and absolutely no casing? A recipe for failure? A tobacco which would be devoid of flavor and difficult to keep lit? Since Greg is not crazy, there was no worry about these things.

Actually, to me, the tin aroma doesn't smell particularly different from other Virginia (broken) flakes: an intriguing perfume of dark cocoa, of dried fruits, of sweet/sour sauce, of hay. Same things I have experienced before. So, it turns out, the best flavors that come out of a good blend are actually due to the leaf. Good to know!

Packing and lighting is easy due to the broken flake/ready rubbed appearance: just stuff the bowl, press it a bit and fire away.

It is a very tasty blend from the first minutes: smooth but full bodied, alternating between a moderate natural fruity sweetness, a pleasant grassy astringency, and a very "organic" feel. It doesn't taste over-processed or too restrained: you can clearly always feel you are burning some vegetal stuff, but in a good way (=it never tastes like an overprocessed blend where the tobacco is just a distant hint). It does NOT taste green, edgy or sour, at all. Very consistent from start to finish, and rather complex too. And of course no bite at all.

Again, it is impressive to think that the big flavor this blend has to offer (it probably is the one with the most distinct character in the Fog City line, although Montgomery's creamy balance is still better to my taste) is completely due to the great choice of leaf, some careful processing and nothing else.

My only drawback is that, being used to lighter stuff, I find Union Square a slight bit heavier (in body, taste and nicotine) than I usually prefer. Not a problem, though: it's not a monster like Haddo's or some British Virginias, and I can easily smoke this in a small bowl (no larger than group 3 or 4 Dunhill equivalent). Actually, I feel that a medium-small bowl is also very good for the flavor development, because this tobacco tastes good from the start and doesn't actually need an hour of slow burning in a large bowl (like other Virginias do) to reach its optimum.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Kerdy (43)	2009-07-22		Medium	None Detected	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Tolerable

Well, what to say about Union Square?

I received a sample pouch of this tobacco. I found the cut to be interesting. It was the perfect moisture. Packed surprisingly well in my Savinelli Roma. Took a few times of lighting to get it going&probably because of the cut. Once lit, it didnt go out. Certainly fine quality, no doubt. These are the good things.

I didnt like the aroma much, but didnt dislike it before lighting. After lighting, I didnt like it at all. Burns much too hot to enjoy. This is a tobacco you MUST pay attention to or it will bite you in a horrible way. I actually found it to be fairly boring. Those who are will surely enjoy Union Square. Unfortunately, I couldnt even make it half way into the bowl before dumping it out. Not for me. I suppose, I am just not a straight Virginia man.

4 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Leon (85)	2021-11-17		Mild	None Detected	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable

In the tin I get sweet dark fruit and a bit of grass or hay.

For a moment I got a whiff of strawberry candy. However, the dominant note is by far sweet grass and hay from the bright Virginias with just a bit of dark fruit from the red Virginias. It's not nearly as tangy and sweet as many other straight Virginia blends due to the lack of added sugar. However, it brings out some of the leaf's natural sweetness and lemon sourness.

Not an overly rich, deep, or complex blend, but does have high and low notes. The grassy and lemon top is completed by a drop of warm bread notes so it's by no means a boring smoke, although the flavor doesn't change much throughout the bowl.

Mechanically, I found that rubbing out the flakes is the easiest way to pack and smoke Union Square. Smoking cool for a straight Virginia and in a moderate pace. No tongue bite. Can be an all-day smoke. Minimal relights.

Mild in body and strength. I do wish it'd have more of both, especially a bit more of body. At times it feels a bit like a chewing gum tastes once the flavors start to disappear, although it's nowhere as drastic as that in the case of Union Square.

This blend is in line with blends such as Orlik Golden Sliced and Mac Baren HH Pure Virginia, as well as Capstan. I've never smoked Full Virginia Flake, so I can't comment on that. Out of these four, I'd probably rank it last as each of the others brings forward something that Union Sq. doesn't. However, I love straight Virginias on the bright side and this is a very good blend. Balancing between the blend on its own and between the way it's compared with other similar blends, I'd go with a three star rating.

Age When Smoked: 7 months

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	RonR (85)	2021-06-08		Mild	None Detected	Mild	Tolerable

3rdguy

One of the complaints I have with straight Virginias is that they usually leave me wanting more. Sometimes I get mostly hot air. Probably why I have a preference for Burley. This is one of the few Virginias that delivers on enough flavor, some nic, nice ease of smoke and has me coming back for more.

Nice retrohale of mild flavor. Burns to a nice white ash everytime. I prefer it in cobs which seem to add just a bump and a giggle more of sweetness. Takes a few relights but once it is going you can put your lighter away. I have over 5 lbs in the cellar of this one and have no regrets. I can now choose to only smoke it with a minimum of 3 years of age. I prefer it to FVF.

Highly recommended.

Pipe Used: Cobs, briar, meer.

Age When Smoked: May/2018

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Bruche (17)	2021-02-22		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

One of my consistent, favorite straight pure Virginias. Rich and satisfying blend of flue cured red and bright leaves. Thin, narrow strips cut from larger flakes; think SG FVF cut into toothpick size pieces. Simple Natural sweetness, that displays complex aromas all at once. The cut lights and packs easily, smokes clean and slowly, and a bowl lasts a long time. This one can really be nursed, and it stays evenly lit, even in a mild breeze. A highly recommended mainstay Virginia.

Pipe Used: Gasparini Freehand Canadian Dublin

Age When Smoked: 7 months

Purchased From: TobaccoPipes.com

Similar Blends: Laurel Heights.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	James C. (17)	2020-10-27		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

If my memory suits me well I smoked this around 5 years ago fresh. I remember a fairly strong blend with nice simple flavors and a few harsh notes. I remember it being good and ordered more tins knowing the master behind the blend and my love for Virginias. Fast forward to now, smoking a tin 5 years old and wow. Smoking the cleanest tasting full Virginia that smokes like a mild one. Subtle sweetness, minimal citrus, fermented hay and oats, a little earth, and slightest tang. The flavors remain consistent but do develop down the bowl and become slightly deeper. Practically no spice only on retrohale do you get that Virginia tingle. Unique in the tobacco world and if only using a few words to surmise. Smooth, rich, singular flavor of excellent expression. Superb.

Pipe Used: Eltang Basic

Age When Smoked: 5 years & new

Similar Blends: Nothing I've smoked..

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	nkulk8r (90)	2019-02-09		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

Union Square: This is The Shit.

Rating tobaccos can be such a fickle affair. Sometimes I find myself vacillating over a 4-star or a 3-star recommend (in most cases, that’s a slam-dunk decision). Sometimes I’m torn between a 1-star “no recommend” and a 2-star “if you are so inclined” recommend. Most of the time these reviews are an easy call (for me). They only become more difficult when I’m giving a 2-star recommend for something that is getting 3-and-4-star reviews from a majority of reviewers, many of whom are practiced pipers, much more experienced than I when it comes to evaluating tobacco. Sometimes I’m just ambivalent about a blend; other times I am of two minds about another. Sometimes I find reviewer grievances about a particular blend to be frivolous; nit-picky; gratuitous; without merit. And then sometimes I try something like Union Square.

Whenever I am trying something new from C&D or G.L. Pease, I always expect the worst, but hope for the best. Union Square is some fantabulous stuff – puffing on this for the first time feels a little bit like hitting the lottery. Aylesbury’s Classic Flake is a very good (3-star) classically straight Virginia. Aylesbury’s Sir John, Gawith’s Full Virginia Flake and McClelland's Straight Virginia (Red Virginia Flake) are all extraordinary examples of everything straight Virginias should be (4-stars). And then there’s Union Square: Just Holy Cow, WOW . . . And yet I know that not everyone is going to agree with my (personal, normative, value-laden) opinion about Union Square. If you’ve read this far into the review, I’m not even going to try and describe what it is about Union Square I find to be so appealing (I mean, if I had to explain) . . .

Going to cellar a few more pounds of this stuff.

Union Square – Highly Recommended – 4-stars, unequivocally.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	BC (21)	2018-05-15		Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

I am on a quest to find a VA to replace McClelland, and this is certainly a candidate. It is not McClelland-ish, but it is a very good smoke. There is no "tang", and certainly no ketchup, but rather a smooth and creamy VA taste. There is no discernible topping, and exhibits, as qualified elsewhere, a very natural tobacco taste. There is a subtle sweetness, and a "bready" quality sneaks in occasionally. It is not a "biter" but can exhibit harsh spots if you get carried away. I read another review that suggested a dedicated "clean" pipe and that is probably a good idea. It is a sort of broken flake and should probably dry out for a few minutes to get the best experience, but it is smoke-able out of the tin. Good stuff, and an excellent candidate for cellaring.

Pipe Used: various dedicated to VAs

Age When Smoked: new

Purchased From: Watch City

Similar Blends: FVF, Opening Night.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Duke Nukum (16)	2017-04-26		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable

I was looking for a Va. blend and ordered this to try.

I tried it 'fresh' so maybe my experience was different to others who aged it.

On opening, it was very dry, almost papery but with good texture. It packed very well and lit easily but burned hot.

I was disappointed. Not because there was anything wrong with the product in any way - it was just that I was expecting an awe-inspiring 'wow' factor smoke with a rich 'leafy' aroma in the smoke and notable Va. flavours and sweetness on the palate.

The actual product is more subdued and complex which is what I'd have assumed it to be if I hadn't been led to expect otherwise.

The product is clearly of excellent quality. Regardless of what others may say, it does need to be kept in its drier state rather than humidified as any 'bite' you get from it burning hot is much milder than from it being smoked in a moister state.

It is certainly worth a try as an all-day blend though is one of the milder Pease blends with lower nicotine. A good indoors product as outdoors the smoke aroma isn't very intense.

Pipe Used: Ropp Bulldog

Age When Smoked: New

Purchased From: Smokingpipes.com

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Mr.Woods (10)	2015-08-13		Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Very Pleasant

Sweet and gentle, yet still quite strong in nicotine. The tin aroma is earthy and fruity, and the flavor is appealing to me, but it has to be puffed slowly to reveal its mystery! I generally like natural tobaccos, and in my opinion this blend tastes like Virginia leaf is supposed to. It's an all day smoke for me, even if I tend to turn to stronger and a little more complex mixtures in the evening. Simplicity is a word that comes to mind, and this is a good thing!

This is the first straight Virginia I've tried (when it comes to pipe tobacco), and I'm very happy that I did try it. I will definitely get some more to see what it's like with a little age on it!

Pipe Used: Henrik Rydberg, Stanwell

Age When Smoked: 4 months

Purchased From: Mellgren's Fine Tobacco

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Dukemans (2)	2015-08-08		Medium	None Detected	Mild	Tolerable

I'm somewhat disappointed by this pure Virginia from GL Pease. If you smoke this a little bit too fast, it tastes absolutely nothing. Just hot air. If you take your time with it you can feel the sweetness from the Virginias but that's about it. It has a taste that, unfortunately reminds me of cigarettes. I had hoped for more complexity. Especially from G.L Pease but I guess that it can't be a home run every time. I do however think that this blend will improve with age.

Pipe Used: Stanwell De Luxe Billiard, Estate GBD Bulldog

Age When Smoked: Almost completely new

Purchased From: Smokingpipes.com

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	TattooGuy (9)	2014-06-14		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

I'm a big Virginia fan. I have smoke a few 8oz. tins of this offering and I must say: Union Square is one of the best Virginias I've smoked, probably THE best to this date. When opening the tin one is welcome by sweet VA richness with fresh hay and citrus undertones. A nice broken flake indeed. Packs and lights easily. In the 1/3 of the bowl it's a bit tangy and citrusy with the VA sweetness and hay in the background. In the 2/3 of the bowl the citrusy notes are much in the background with a mouthful of rich VA sweetness. This blend continues to evolve in the last third to become even more delightfully sweet with more earthy richness. Like all VA's, one must sip it slowly to taste all the goodness of that masterfully blended Virginia. This is my go to smoke any time of day, I can't be without Union Square. Thank you G.L. Pease! I give it 4 stars.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Wibblefishofdoom (139)	2013-10-14		Very Strong	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

This is the last of three Pease tobaccos I bought a couple of months back and the one I've had the most problems discerning the flavour. Still, I have had a lot of pleasure from it so here goes the review.

The tin aroma has hints of lemon and the flakes are a nice mix of yellows and light brown and rub out very easily, once again I find myself impressed by the colour and consistency of Pease's offerings. The packing is easy and lighting is never an issue. The flavour is funny, as I can't pin it down to anything familiar, there are occasional hints of lemon but it's nothing consistent. I hate to disagree with most other reviewers here but I did find this incredibly strong, perhaps one of the strongest tobaccos I've smoked, and I have learned to puff it gently as a result. I do agree with Moniker that this one is better smoked when dry rather than damp, as the flavours come out better.

For me, this is a very good tobacco, let down a little by the strength and the issues discerning the flavour. It fully justifies another tin and perhaps a bit of aging as and when my bank balance allows.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Cochon74 (29)	2013-03-16		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

Two-thirds of the way through a tin from 2011... one word. Pure. This tin description is spot on.

My thoughts are coming from the position of a relative novice in the ways of Virginias... so please, take this all with a grain of salt... but I have to say that Mr Pease's Union Square has been the most overwhelmingly positive experience I've had with a straight VA tobacco to date. I've enjoyed Tilbury, McClellands Brindle Flake and Gawith's Best Brown, but I've come to realize that these smokes have been, for lack of a better word, misguided and uniformed.

The beauty of US is that it more or less TELLS you how to smoke it. Everything I've read and been told about how to enjoy VA's has come to fruition in this flake. You do as you should and it yields immediate and wonderful results. It demonstrates all the rewards that slow, controlled and thoughtful pipe smoking can offer.

As far as flavor goes, zulujerk nailed it. The sweetness is sharper and clearer than more mature, dark flakes. I'd add turbinado sugar, the bready sweetness of whole wheat bread as opposed to molasses, caramel and stewed fruit. Fresh hay, toast and a pleasant tartness like Meyer lemons. The smoke is full and voluminous without being creamy.

The flavor is clean, concise and thoroughly enjoyable. The purity of expression is this tobacco's strong suit. I'd put this experience on par with that of drinking Elmer T Lee bourbon, or playing a Telecaster guitar. It's not flashy. It's not full of bells and whistles. But to the uninitiated, it is a formal initiation into the truest form. And for the experienced, a joyful foray into the simplest (in a Zen sense) distillation of what they love. This is kind of the sushi of tobaccoes, if you will.

But I'm waxing a little philosophical here. In the end, this is just a fantastic way to enjoy pipe smoking.

I'm curious to see how this ages and will be getting another tin or two for cellaring.

Thank you, Greg Pease, for the excellence.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-02-02		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

One of my all-time favorite light straight VAs. 2oz tins didn't last very long so I graduated to 8oz tins. Yep, it's pricier than a lot of other VAs out there but I think it's worth it. Don't compare this to SG's FVF or McC's Blackwoods, or any Danish flake. It's a totally different animal. Broken flake of light and red VAs with apparently no(?)topping/casing (I believe it). A great light tin note of hay, buttered pancakes, a little malt and a bit of citrus. Basically. makes you want to eat it out of the can. Needs a little air and dry time 'cause it's deceptively rather dry-appearing upon opening. Not conducive to fold and stuff. Flakes are packed on their their side and I have yet to retrieve a foldable flake out of a tin. So I rub it out. Initial smoke is very citrusy but then it builds to an earthy sweetness that is incredible to me. And every now and then a bitter-sweet note of citrus rind in the background. Absolutely the closest I've had a tobacco smoke in comparison to its tin note ! Perhaps not the most complex tobacco on the planet, but then not a whole lot of ingredients in here either. Just some really nicely treated straight Virginia tobacco. No perique, no burley, no nothing. I'm not foresaking any of of my other VA favorites. I have several. Just another addition to a nice variety! If you think you like virginias, or think you might like 'em, give it a spin.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	doc'spipe (242)	2011-01-06		Medium	Mild	Medium	Very Pleasant

I've been wanting to try this for a long while now and started off with a 2 oz tin. The tin aroma had a very pleasant sweetness to it - no discernible top note, just a pleasant Virginia sweetness. The tobacco was in flake form and neatly stacked about in the small tin.

My sample was just the right moisture level for packing and smoking. It took to the match readily and required one or two relights along the way (more due to the fact that I had to put it down from time to time as I was doing some work at home). The overall Virginia character, for me, was reminiscent of Mac Baren's Virginia No. 1 which I enjoy very much. This offering, however, did not smoke hot like Mac's at all, nor was there even a tingling to the tongue. It was one of the most pleasant tasting Virginia smokes I have ever had. So much so that I won't be as concerned at the moment over the lack of availability of FVF or BBF from Samuel Gawith as it blows those two out of the water. Union Square has a nice nicotine presence for those who are interested in such things, and not over the top. I rated the flavoring as mild. There may not have been anything added as such, but this Virginia was pleasantly sweet and not bland by any means. There was some moisture present even after sufficient drying. The room note was exquisite, subtly sweet and not in any way cigarette-like or ashy. Returning to the room for DGT can be addicting! Smoked like a charm in a Weber sandblast (looks and smokes like a Dunhill) medium poker.

If you favor straight Virginias, this is, in my opinion, much more enjoyable than FVF or BBF, different than Dunhill Flake, but good in its own way.

UPDATE 1-17-12: As tasty as it was originally, the flavor and sweetness really comes to the fore after several months aging. There was some minimal harshness when smoked fresh, but now greatly subdued. Not a 4 star yet for me nor a regular in rotation, but when the muse strikes, it makes for a good smoke.

UPDATE 2-28-13: Going on 2yrs 1mo of aging what's left of my 8oz tin - about 3 ounces - this is the ticket for pure VA flavor and enjoyment. Simply stellar and up to the vaulted realm of 4 stars!

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2010-07-03		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

I just finished a tin I started over two months ago, and my initial impression is the same as the one I have now-I just don't get it. There are glimpses of greatness here...my tin had about 10 months aging on it, so maybe age is a factor? But, rating it as the smoke I had at hand, well, it's blase at best.

Initial reaction upon opening the tin-'sour-crab-applesauce'. Not totally unpleasant, but blissfully, a scent that diminished within a few day's airing. (Didn't want to smoke a bad Jolly Rancher.)

My first attempts were with a light rubout....not totally unsatisfactory, as the tobacco took to a match ok. Too bad the taste was 'green', still.

Every subsequent bowl was similar: whether fold 'n' stuff, rubbed, or 'rubbed 'til it became dust'-a quality VA blend that screamed 'I need....(?) Actually, the 'dust' method provided the best smoke at the end...or was it the month or two of air? Either way, at this point, I could actually get a glimpse of what the proponents see- a carmelized sugar-fruit goodness that availed itself on the exhale like almost no other. Unfortunately, it was an occasional, fleeting, glimpse. Give me that 'snork' religiously, and US would skyrocket to no.1 with a bullet. As is, I could take it or leave it.

Is it worth a try? Why, yes! I am only one dude...my taste and yours are most definitely different. Just don't be too surprised if it becomes a 'meh' blend to you. (Try aging it if that's true...that is my plan.)

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2010-06-17		Mild	None Detected	Mild	Tolerable

Why bother? Orlik's Golden Sliced is both better and cheaper.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Kilmarnock Piper (251)	2010-04-19		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

This is a three star, not a four star for me right now, but my tin is young, I love the idea of an almost purely natural Virginia, and I can tell that with age it will earn that fourth star. The elements are all there: Virginia sweetness that is understated at first yet grows as the bowl progresses, balance, purity; perhaps too much purity at this age, but I'm sure a few years will corrupt it nicely. There really are no overtones or adjuncts to the young Virginia flavor at this point. Even so, it is a fine smoke. I will return to this review when it has sat in the jar for a while. I think this is a great one to cellar, so as regards the review below mine, anyone wishing to chuck their can, contact me first!

4-6-11 A year along in the jar. I seem to detect an improvement. Nice, natural Virginia smoke.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2010-04-11		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Tolerable

This isn't my bag at all, but it's not because of the taste. I like the taste. First few puffs don't do much for me, it tastes ashy and flat. But midway through the bowl the flavor is complex and satisfying. The tin aroma is like hay and applesauce. Really nice.

Problem is this: This just makes me nic sick. I don't know if I just have a problem with virginias or what. But I really never could smoke a whole bowl of the stuff without getting the spins and sweats. I can smoke a giant bowl of some popular latakia blends, but both this and EMP kick my butt. I kept wanting more, but couldn't handle it. So I chucked what I head left in the can. Kind of a bummer really. Maybe someone will tell me what is up with this effect.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-12-26		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

I just opened my second tin of this tobacco which is 6 months old. I never finished the first one but wanted to try it fresh. I found it dull and uninteresting.

This blend is reminiscent of a typical straight burley tobacco. For me this has the same rich but bland smoke that is typical of a cube cut burly blend. There is a slight hint of cocoa, which is nice, and the smoke has very dense body while staying fairly cool. Those are positive things. However I see no reason to smoke this because it's too bland and neutral. I suppose if I smoked all day this would be a nice blend because it would be easy on the palate. However, I smoke only in the evening after dinner and I want to smoke a blend which has some complexity. I love Cairo and Telegraph Hill from GL Pease and will smoke those instead of this.

It's high quality and worth a try for those curious to try everything. And, why not try everything? For a classic "straight" virginia I would skip this and smoke S. Gawith Full Viginia or Rattray's Old Gowrie, Orlick Golden Slices, Reiner Golden Flake, etc.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-06-23		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Very Pleasant

This is a wonderful tobacco. Perhaps the everyday smoke that I have been searching for since I deemed Briar fox to be a bit too much for me on a daily basis. First reactions upon opening the tin were very thin flakes, light and almost "tissuey". Lovely pure tobacco scent. Two flakes stuffed into my Castello bulldog and off to the races I went. A dry wheat taste to begin with that lingered well into the bowl. I concur with the "toastiness" expressed by other reviewers. Never became harsh as FVF can. I don't have the tongue for the subtleties but when you can smoke a Virginia tobacco and not get bit, you know that Pease outdid himself.

3 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Ryan Nolte (8)	2022-07-30		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

This blend satisfies that pure Virginia craving. I personally let the tin air out for a few hours before putting it into a jar, as I find it brings out more of the natural sweetness. This is a very sweet Virginia, with sugar and honey dominating the taste spectrum in the most wonderful of ways. This one is perfect for rotating between earthy Virginias or VaPers.

It is a few notches below medium in taste, but the depth is absolutely there. I think this is what makes this blend so special, allowing it to be smoked very often without losing its magic.

This tobacco is the definition of an all day Virginia, especially if you lean towards the sweeter side. Not much more to add here that hasn't already been said, but if you are a straight Virginia person and haven't given this blend a try, it's a must. Does not bite which is so nice for a Virginia this pure.

Ages beautifully. Had one tin that was around 7 years old and was perfect.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Thepipehunter (43)	2021-08-22		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Pleasant

From the tin, Union Square is a broken flake that is a little on the moist side. I would recommend a some drying time but not much. The flakes easily rub out to a ribbon cut if desired. The tin note is earthy, tangy, spicy, fermented, and semi sweet.

This one smokes different then the aroma. The flavor profile ranges from earthy lows to bright highs. I think earthy is the predominant flavor and gives the blend a very round profile. There is a lot of bready and hay notes present that are semi sweet, but it is a nice natural sweetness. The Red Virginias add tangy fruity flavors as well as hint of subtle spices. The brights are in the background but still noticeable in every puff. They are mildly citrusy with a touch of lemon grass. The blend offers some complexity with each Virginia fighting for the lead at various times. In my experience, it starts off more earthy and gets sweeter as the bowl progresses.

Union Square behaved well. It didn’t offer any tongue bite and smoked cool for a Virginia. Towards the end of the bowl there is an ashy taste present, but only the very bottom of the bowl. It required a normal amount of relights and did leave some moisture behind. It’s full in flavor and a medium in the vitamin N department. I wouldn’t want to smoke this blend all day because of the nuances in the flavor but this would be a very good smoke in the evening to unwind with when you have the time to pay full attention to the pipe. I also believe this will age very well. 3.75 out of 4 stars.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	JJ Sir Emmitt (40)	2021-07-24		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

Straight Virginia blends are not typically something I reach for, but this tobacco was very nice. It has all the Virgina flavors that you come to expect: sweetness, citrus, bread, grassiness, some mild pepper, and earthiness. This tobacco also offered some occasional notes of coffee which was very nice.

It performed pretty well but burned a little hot for me, and needed attention. This is not something I will go out of my way for but I could see myself reaching for it if I have a serious craving for a straight Virgina blend that is on the brighter side.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Bulldog8483 (25)	2020-04-11		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

Union Square is a great Virginia blend that does just about everything extremely well. The Virginias themselves are middle of the road in terms of taste when you think about the variations of flavors that Virginias can take on. Union Square has a slight bready note, but it's not a predominantly bready Virginia like Escudo. It also has a slight hay like note, but not predominantly like Orlik Golden Sliced. And lastly, it has a slight earthy, leaf litter like Virginia note, but not so predominantly as something like SG Full Virginia Flake. It's mild, extremely pleasant taste wise and subtle. The room note is sweet smelling for a Virginia and not off-putting in the slightest. It's not overly sweet like some Virginias, but the sugar content is certainly there and this blend will age well with time. It is well behaved and doesn't bite, even if it's pushed, requires very little maintenance and relights and the broken flakes are easy to work with. Bottom line, It's a phenomenal smoke from start to finish. I smoke it most often in a Savinelli 2622 pipe which has medium sized, medium height to the bowl itself. This blend, however, is more resilient and less picky in terms of pipe selection than I've had with other blends (HH Pure Virginia is a good example). To get to the point (if you haven't figured it out already), this is an easy 4 out of 4 star blend. I smoke it regularly and after spending some time with it have decided to cellar numerous tins of it. It's wonderful that it comes in 8 oz tins and that the price is very affordable. To be honest, I haven't found anything else quite like it because it just does everything well straight Virginia wise. Pick up a tin or 20 ;) and I think you'll be happy you did...

Pipe Used: Several but Savinelli 2622 is my go-to

Age When Smoked: Fresh, 1, 2 and 3 years

Purchased From: Everywhere

Similar Blends: Nothing that I've found yet....

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2020-02-08		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Not exceptionally complex but a good solid rich Virginia blend. Doesn’t have the traditional Virginia notes one would expect. Didn’t get any grassy hay or much citrus. Instead, a marzipan and orgeat bomb with a cinnamon finish and some mild woodsy dryness in the mouth . Blend gets more flavorful as the bowl progresses. Sweetness not sugar on the tongue instead a deeper kind of almond pastry sweetness. Quite good but not what I’d expect from most Virginia blends. More of a desert blend. Unique and delicious. Warm smoke but no bite. Might up dry time to 30 minutes. Nic got more than most Virginias, medium nic.

Method: cut flake with scissors, 10 minute dry time Location: inside

Pipe Used: La rocca 1/4 bent billiard

Age When Smoked: Fresh

Purchased From: Smokingpipes.com

Similar Blends: Nothing.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Dr. Dunhill 23 (39)	2020-01-15		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Mild	Pleasant

The tin note was nice filled with mild fruitiness. This sample has been aged for 6 years.

The smoke itself was mediocre on my palate at best. The flavors were quite bland and lacked the fine, sweet, hay richness I have experienced in other aged straight Virginias. Some say this lack of sweetness is an attribute. I did not find it so. I found this tobacco to be very ordinary and bland, kind of like a cigarette.

The tobacco burned hot and was difficult to light but once going, was easy to keep it going. Perhaps I have an off batch?

Not my favorite and I think I will jar the rest and give it another go in a few more years or maybe forget about it and give it away. In the meantime, there are plenty of other tobaccos out there to enjoy.

Out of respect for Greg and some of his other blends that are truly amazing, I give this a 2.

Pipe Used: Castello Bent Dublin G size

Age When Smoked: 6 years aged

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Cleonides (21)	2019-10-13		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Full	Pleasant

A wonderful straight virginia with no sugar or flavorings added. It is exactly what you'd expect from the description. Not much to add. If you like virginias, and dont want all the extra flavorings and sugar, I do not know how you could beat this blend without of growing and curing your own tobacco. Perfection.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Tomcat (221)	2019-09-19		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Unnoticeable

Wow ! Straight Virginia goodness ! It needed some drying time which for me most blends do . From the tin , not much i can smell , a little citrus . Good natural tobacco flavor . It tastes a wee citrus and slightly fruity and surprisingly spicy from the red Virginia i assume . Not very sweet at all . The reds dominate to me . It has a nice creaminess also . I take my time smoking this as i could sense it may bite if pushed hard and I don’t plan on finding out . Thanks to GL Pease for this fine Virginia blend ! It should age well .

Similar Blends: Red carpet with no perique..

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Knightsmoker (218)	2019-03-10		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Union Square has bright VA's out front with notes of grass and citrus. The Red Va's trail behind but will move forward at times. They are very tangy with a yeast like note on occasion, dark fruit notes, some toasted bread notes and a faint spice. The VA's are slightly earthy with a touch of sweetness. The flavors stay at the mild to med range and you need to really focus on the smoke to find all of them. I would still not consider this as complex as others but it does hold my interest nonetheless. It does not get ashy or cigarette like in any way, the mouth feel stays smooth and creamy. The nic is at the mild to med range and can be sipped all day if one is inclined to do so.

Age When Smoked: 8 months

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	SiriusAmory (25)	2019-02-12		Mild	None Detected	Mild	Very Pleasant

Union Square has a very light aroma of bread with a hint of baking spice upon opening the tin. The flakes are, for the most part, broken up quite a bit. They also are fairly easy to rub out. The tobacco is dry enough to smoke right away as well.

At the start of the bowl there is a hint of toast and practically nothing else. However the blend opens up nicely after the first third or so. There’s some grassiness as well as dark fruit and spice. Any discernible flavors are on the mild side and require you to smoke slowly and really think about what you’re tasting. If you’re doing anything else while smoking Union Square, you may miss out on the subtle flavor.

Overall Union Square lights up easily and stays lit well, only requiring a few relights. This is definitely a first smoke of the day.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Dr.James (39)	2018-12-20		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

Comprised of top notch natural Virginia tobaccos, Union Square is presented in coarse leathery flakes. While bright Virginias exude vegital layers and tart quince notes, red Virginias add depth, sweetness, a light woodsy aroma and dried red apple nuance. Union Square is very robust for a Virginia flake, and as the bowl progresses light creamy spiced custard flavors emerge. Burns clean and smooth to a grey ash right out of the tin without moisture issues and leaves a pleasantly dry and lightly sweet finish on the palate, room note is enjoyable. A bit strong to be an all day smoke but delicious enough to repeat.

Similar Blends: Dunhill Flake.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	ATW (110)	2018-09-25		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

I'm not saying this is a bad blend by no means, but it needs aging for sure. My palate is over dominated by very young, bright Va. i only get just a hint here and there of the red. Too sharp and bright for my tastes, burns pretty hot, and gives me incredible tongue bite. I only suspect it's because of the lack of age. It has all the potential to be great. Just need to give it time.

Update 5-28-19 with almost a year as of the production date of this blend, the addition 6 months has really helped this one out. The natural sweetness has really shined through. C&D Virginias always have a burley like character imo but the age has let me know otherwise. The brights add a hint of citrus. The reds give it a deeper profile without drowning out the brights. It still has a tendency to give some bite but a slow puff here and there prevent that from happening. I'm sure with more age it will smoke cooler and sweeter. As I've stated before, age will do this blend great justice and so far it has shown me that it has.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Olivermac (19)	2018-08-04		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

I just got a knock on my front door from the package lady and my memory had lapsed when it came to ordering this tobacco over a month ago. It's been on backorder. I got the large tin and I also have a large tin of embarcaderro that came to me already aged 3 years! Cornell and deihl manufacturers all of pease's tobaccos and a lot of times I get the impression he is better at creating awesome recipes than they are. This one being no exception. It's the purest of Virginia and I really enjoy that. I wanted to cellar it because it was only tinned up 3 months ago, but I couldn't resist having this new addition to my vast collection be my 1st smoke of the day. I won't go into great detail about the taste because it's been done here well, but I will definitely say that if you are a fan of Virginia then you are sure to really like this one. Update: I've been smoking this for a while now and I will say this is probably my favorite all Virginia blend. It is so simply done, but the layers of flavor here are just remarkable. I'm smoking it now at the crack of dawn with my morning coffee and man is it a fine smoke. Got 2 more big tins on the way now!

Edit: this is truly one of the finest Virginia tobaccos out there today. I love this tobacco! Since my beloved mcclleland(there apparently will never be another Virginia that will compare) went away, this is the best replacement I can find.

Pipe Used: Carved Meershaum

Age When Smoked: April 2018

Purchased From: P&c

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	gunner525 (66)	2018-05-13		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

I gave this straight Va offering a go when I was still wet behind the ears in the hobby. At the time I really wasn't able to suss out the leaf flavors well, so the first go wasn't so great. It's also a bit on the stronger side nic wise, so that also deterred me from it. Since then behind my ears have dried a bit and I've branched into LBF, Escudo, Golden Sliced etc., so I decided to give this another go.

The cut is a flake, but to me it's more of a broken flake. Most of them end up being about half the size of an average Orlik or Mac Baren flake. You can still put a few together to fold & stuff or you can just rub it out. With this blend I've rubbed it out and have had good results.

It packs pretty easily and takes a char/true light well. It burns on the slower side which I think helps draw flavors out better. Being a straight Va one would think this would be a fairly straight forward and mundane go, but it's quite the opposite. Because of the diversity of types of Va leaves it offers every flavor profile in that spectrum. You get the plum/raisin/fig notes. The bready yeasty notes come out as well. The citrusy earthy hay like flavors come in as well. It's a rare complex Va blend.

To me this is more of a sit down an concentrate on the smoke kind of blend, because of its complexity.

Overall I'd recommend it for anyone that's in to Va's, but not as a first foray into the Virginia genre.

Pipe Used: Pete Prevost bamboo shanked billiard

Age When Smoked: New

Purchased From: SmokingPipes

Similar Blends: Nothing, this is a one of a kind type of blend only Greg could create..

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	toddsmith7378 (41)	2018-04-22		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

It's got a little more nicotine and flavor than the average Virginia Flake by Peterson, McClelland or Dunhill. Perhaps, even less casing is present even in the tin scent. So, I give him credit for something that really does seem a very true pure strong Virginia blend. It reminds me of McConnel's Red Virginia a bit. If I hadn't already smoked that, I'd likely be more wowed, but it's pretty similar in character, and I think McConnell's is a little tastier.

I do enjoy this one and it's a darn good smoke. I just have yet to taste that GL Pease Blend that verifies his stellar reputation as the best. I do think this one has potential to age into something better than smoking it new, but it's certainly not a negative review, just didn't blow me away. It's basically as good as other Straight Virginia's that are out there made by the reputable companies. It does have artisan quality flake, so that's a plus. Reminds me a bit of a McClelland, but completely without their signature.

If he was going for something pure, which maybe he was, he hit the mark. It's almost just a packed raw blend of Virginia tobacco's. I think I can smell the dirt it was grown in, its that natural.

Pipe Used: Meer

Age When Smoked: New

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Muchogum (7)	2017-07-17		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Very Pleasant

Well-formed, loose flakes with a mild Virginia aroma greet the smoker who opens an aged tin of US. A tad moist on opening, but easy to pack and light no matter how firmly pressed. So far, so good!

I simply cannot agree with the plethora of laudatory comments with their extremely favorable contrasts to the great English Virginia flakes from so many producers (some of which are blended in the USA)! Perhaps I am not yet ready for a "natural Virginia" and historically prefer adulterated Virginias. I do not know! I do know this blend was very much less flavorful and generously satisfying than about every other "full Virginia flake" I regularly puff. I had high hopes after all the four star ratings!

To be fair, this Virginia flake has grown on me in a subtle way over the last several days. Well-aged and given enough air, the blend "rounds out" into a mild, satisfying smoke that is more generous than initially indicated. There is more sweetness and flavor satisfaction since I first opened the tin: three stars!

Pipe Used: Dunhill Billiard

Age When Smoked: 2-3 years

Purchased From: Smoking Pipes

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	gahdzila (61)	2017-03-20		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Medium chocolate brown, uniform color, broken flake at an average moisture level. The smell in the jar caught me off guard, so I had my 9 year old check it as well. His assessment - "Hmm! Raisins? And something else. Smells pretty good!". What I smelled was a sweet fermented fruit scent (raisins is pretty close) up front and also a slight hint of hearty grain. Ok, short answer - it smells like raisin bran. Yes, really.

The fruity-raisin flavor doesn't carry over to the smoke at all for me, though. But the cereal grain flavor does. Tobacco-Wheaties. If I'm really really patient and really really careful, I can coax a good bit of sweetness out of it. And if I abuse it, I can get a little bite out of it, but I didn't find it to be particularly bitey. I don't know how old this is, as it was a sample I got in trade, but I suspect it's not terribly old, and I suspect it will show improvement with age. Nicotine level is no higher than medium.

Overall, a decent middle of the road straight Virginia. If that's your forte, you might just love this stuff.

originally reviewed 8/10/2012

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	L'Italiano (233)	2015-04-30		Strong	None Detected	Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Strong, pure Virginia tobacco. The description is exact and this tobacco is a real thoroughbred. A little bit much strong, but tasty and natural. Excellent straight, excellent with a hint of Latakia or Perique if you prefer. Nothing else to say: try it!!!

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Virginia lover (218)	2014-07-06		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

This broken flake Virginia has a fermented dry fruit smell, the moisture level is on the wet side but could be smoked right away. It's a medium bodied Virginia tobacco with a natural sweetness and all the flavor spectrum that a Virginia lover would want in his pipe. One should be aware of its strength however, especially if smoked fast.

Virginia lover

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Eric Cioe (37)	2014-04-06		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

When I started looking into straight Virginia blends, I quickly settled on this one as the first to really try and take apart. I'm a devotee of the GLP blends and know that aging really takes some of them to a sublime level. So when I saw a few 2009 tins on pipestud's website at basically retail, I jumped.

The broken flake is kind of weird. I've found that lots of the GLP broken flakes are really variable, in that you'll sometimes get a tin that's really broken, and sometimes they're mostly intact. I'm guessing that shipping is what breaks a lot of these.

The tin note is really deep and earthy, and if the blend had any bright leaf in it to begin with, five years has allowed them to darken. In the pipe there are lots of different notes coming and going: a subdued sweetness, deeper, earthy flavors that I tend to associate with orientals, a little bit of cigar-like spice. I'm bad at describing component flavors of a blend, but let me say that this is well-integrated and, as I think someone else said, highly complex across a narrow frequency band. There aren't bass notes that latakia or dark-fired Kentucky can provide, and none of the highs that perique or bright Virginias bring, but in the middle there is a ton going on. How much of this is inherent in the blend, and how much comes from aging, I can't be sure. But it's sublime, whatever it is.

I'm happy to have another tin of this aging away, and I'm going to get some more. This isn't necessarily a blend I would smoke all day, as the nicotine can build up a bit, and I do like some condimental leaf with complex Virginias. But for someone like me who doesn't like overbearing sweetness in his pipe, this is a fine, fine blend.

EDIT On the strength of that 5 year old tin, I ordered an 8 oz tin. I did my usual thing and split it up into 4 mason jars, and opened one of them right away. I'm a little disappointed. The flakes are a little chunkier, which is fine, but the cigar-note that I liked in the old tin is really amplified here, kind of taking over the subtler notes that I really liked. So for me, this is 3 stars fresh, and 4 with age.

Pipe Used: Lots of them, but an old Comoy pot worked best

Age When Smoked: 5 years

Purchased From: pipestud

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	McKNooB (35)	2013-10-29		Medium	Very Mild	Medium	Pleasant

I'm careful to make sure that I have enough time to smoke a full bowl of this stuff. Besides Navy Escudo Duluxe, I don't have a more consistent burning tobacco in the cellar. It's my first GLP and it has really caught my attention.

I would agree with some reviews below; age this a bit and it smokes like gold in your pipe. Though, I did enjoy the first pipe right out of a fresh tin. Man, those are beautiful flakes.

Lights easy, packs well, burns so nicely and so cool that I sometimes think that its not burning at all. To me, when I light this one up I'm left thinking that this is the way tobacco was meant to smoke (and smell).

And I think, contrary to popular opinion, this might be one that somebody relatively new to pipe smoking could try without getting blown away by the strength and swell Vitamin N content.

Nuff sed.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2013-09-08		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

I've been holding off this review for a while as it has taken me a while to adjust my palate to Mr Pease' tastes. There is little doubt that he has a distinctive House Style- I have so far tried four of his blends and they are all unmistakably Pease. His tobaccos tend to emphasise the upper mids and high notes- you won't find much of that 'slump into your sofa and stare off into the distance' you get from something like Nightcap or Escudo- even with something as satisfying as Cumberland there is a cerebral/controlled aspect to a Pease product akin to a very well prepared IPA (at the proper strength, 3.6% ABV) as opposed to a Titanic stout, which makes you wistful for a roaring fire and a blustery night. I ordered 2 tins of U.S. and used one of them to add complexity and lightness to some McBaren's H.H. Old Dark Fired, which works very well. But on it's own, Union Square is a subtle, clean tobacco which gives most flavour as a broken flake, sipped conscientiously, with the ocassional deep draw. I can't think of any oher Va I have ever tried which so captures the essence of Va- this is a superb product, but be aware, it is subtle. It needs to be unpacked, to be thought about, to be viewed as one would extremely well prepared sashimi. I have learned a lot about Va from U.S. and I feel everyone should have a tin or two in their cellar, to be able to touch base with the purest offering of this quintessential species of tobacco

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	CPT/VSG (72)	2013-06-02		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Disclaimer: I find reviewing straight Virginias difficult because they require a very refined palate to discern the subtle nuances...but I'm learning as best I can. US burns well, has an acceptable room note, doesn't bite, and has a rich Virginia sweetness. I'd recommend it for those wnating a pleasant straight Virginia experience.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-07-15		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

I bought this tobacco partly because it seemed a duty to experience the taste of pure tobacco but mainly because it was one of the first batch of Greg Pease's collection available from a UK supplier. Sorry to digress but I never thought I would type those words so Hooray!!! and thanks to the hard work and initiative of Greg and Gauntleys of Nottingham I can say goodbye to wrestling with UK custoums duties - last week I got a refund from an order in March!!! I must add however that my US supplier (Smoking Pipes) are a pleasure to deal with but those custoums duties are both an insult and an Injury.

Sorry the tobacco in question. I had low expectations of pure tobacco having tried McBarens unflavoured tobacco (Nothing but Tobacco or some name like that) years ago and it was flat and dull. Interesting but taste, remember and dump the tin. Union Square is the opposite. Open the drum (drums not cans in Nottingham) and get a lovely smell of sweet hay. Charring light hot but then a cool near bite free smoke particularly notable for a pure virginia but perhaps the additives in most flakes are partly to blame. Then a rich deep smoke evoking layers of flavour including hot raspberry jam on the hot sponge my dear old mother used to make, with, more in the background, strawberries, figs, nectarines. Then a counterpoint of dryer but still sweetish hay. Great smoke now but I think with huge ageing potential - my tin date was 051612 - as the flavours deepen and become more focused. No mean praise from a smoker of English mixtures. Stars? Four even without the ageing potential but with it a very easy four.

Will I buy more of this deep fruity tobacco (which is very easily available in the UK at last) to taste now and lay down for the future? Of course.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Mesh (51)	2012-07-08		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Edit (March 2016): Almost four years on from my initial review, either this tobacco or my palate has changed, because what I wrote back then definitely doesn't resonate with my recent experiences.

Having given another tin a try with my latest order, it's been one excellent smoke after another. There is enough sweetness to satisfy, but for me what comes forward the most are the bready/pastry notes from what must be the red VAs, more so than any other VA I have ever smoked, with the possible exception of SG's Best Brown Flake. These flavours intensify after mid-bowl, and there are no harsh notes towards the end as there are with countless lesser VAs. All in all, brilliant stuff. I'll be ordering more tins and hoping for the same quality.

Rating raised from 2 to a solid 4.

----------

Serviceable, well-intentioned, but there's nothing outstanding or spectacular going on here. Pleasant sweet, brown-sugar notes crop up for a few puffs in the second half - otherwise not a great deal happening. It tastes very 'young' (my tin is dated May 2012) and it doesn't seem like the blend has been subjected to much aging prior to packaging, so a sealed tin would no doubt improve after a few years in a drawer, perhaps substantially.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-05-23		Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Pleasant

This is a high quality leaf that burns well as can be expected of a Pease blend.

Sadly, there's nothing truly spectacular about this blend. It definitely smokes better after the first third of the bowl as it begins to taste how it smells in the tin. There are definitely fig/raisin notes as well as a natural virginia sweetness, but the beginning of the smoke tastes too much like a cigarette. It would probably make an excellent base for mixing, but by itself, it remains underwhelming.

It's certainly a high quality leaf that any virginia lover, or someone looking to try out a pure virginia, should give a try, but I don't see myself buying another tin with so many other offers out there.

----Update------

After storing this blend for about six more months (total one year of age), the nuances of this tobacco really came through. The taste became more full and constantly progressed from spicy to sweet and earthy throughout the bowl. Still a cool smoke without a bite issue. I highly recommend this blend--greatly improved with age and airing out.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	BarnicleBack (1)	2012-04-01		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Edit, 2015, feb.: after revisiting this, and the other tins that had aged over the years... they didn't last long, turned into a stellar tobacco, complex, yet well married, high nic, give it a chance if you're one of the naysayers, hold onto it for a while.

This being my first online review take it for what it's worth. That being said I figured on reviewing this tobacco for a couple reasons; I am almost exclusively a virgina and virginia perique blend smoker, Union Square being a virginia i figured I had some, if any, credibilty, take it fwiw. And two, this blend just doesnt do it for me.

Upon opening you are overwhealmed with that lovely BBQ/ketchupy aroma that some love and some love to hate. I love it, but have learned to grow cautious of it, why? Because sometimes it just needs more maturity, durring this maturity i find that the ketchup mellows out over time, not completely, but subtle hints of other virginia earthy flavors win-out over time. Such is the case wth this blend in my opinion. And I didnt just come to this conclusion from the tin aroma alone, i've got less than 1/4 of the tin left after a trial an error period. While very smooth, and married, lacks depth of taste due to the robust middle-ground flavor. Not many high notes, or low notes usually attributed to the airy Hay-like sweetness of some bright virginias, or the dark muddy notes of a pressure firmented beast, this Union Square lies somewhere in the middle with the potential for subtle whisps of both high and low va tastes. But my tin, without a doubt, needs more age. She's too green for me folks, a little boring. I will let my tins age some more and update accordingly. Would I recommend this? Well yes to a fellow virgina smoker, and no, to anyone else, fore it's not what I would want anyone basing their virgina experiences on. Tempermental, and boring. But has potential to be great. Thanks for reading, hope it helps.

Pipe Used: Cobs meers briars

Purchased From: Smokingpipes.com

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Mr. Big (321)	2012-03-01		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

Perfect, and to think I almost didn't try this because I never thought of G L Pease as a Virginia blender. Now how to describe ? Take 1/4 Briar Fox as a base, add 1/4 Mac Barens Virginia #1 for sweetness, add 1/4 Wessex Brigade Campaign Dark Flake for fruity nuances, finally add 1/4 Solani 660 Silver Flake for the Kentucky spice . 4 Stars

Agree with Zulujerk below

Updated 10/30/12 I'm a little disapointed with my second tin, it just doesn't have the sweet high notes I found in my first. It falls closer to Briar Fox than the others I called out. Maybe it's the age of the second tin but I need to take this down one star . Still a fine tobacco but more of a "Brown Flake"

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Hemlock (69)	2011-11-11		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Smoking a 2 yr old tin. It is a fine VA, and is clearly from a crop selected for pipe smoking. Highly evident crystallized sugars on the leaf. That said, my tin was not evidently sweet in flavour as some suggest it is. Nice format and good tobacco. There are many in its class but it is worthy of recognition since it is available and characteristic. With such simple tobaccos, I sometimes wonder how much is the art of blending versus just harvesting and processing a crop of a particular field in a particular year. Is the Union Square of 2011 the same as my tin of 2009 or am I simply tasting the leaf from a unique crop bought by the blender at an auction, that eventually runs out? Perhaps we must start to treat such tobaccos as vintages, and demand the craftsmen to label their products with the year as vintners do rather than just date the bottom of the tins..

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-09-18		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

Holy cow, this is great Virginia tobacco! I'm on my first tin but so far so great. Found I had to give it a good rub to have it smoke reliably, but that done it requires little tending. Don't know but it seems like one goes down one of several paths when taking up pipe smoking. A lot seem to enter with the aromatics. Many just stay there. Good on them! The remainder seem to veer next towards either the Latakia camp or the Virginia camp. I've found myself in the latter. And Union Square seems to be one of the purest expressions of Virginia I've encountered. No taste comparison intended, but it's like having an extremely dry Martini....one where the bartender just THOUGHT about Vermouth as opposed to having added it. This stuff is 'dry' in that respect, the only sweetness coming from the Virginia leaves themselves. Really great.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-08-18		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

Tin: Comes packed in a flap-eared cardboard container inside the tin. Smells of a light wheat, bread or hay. Mottled light to dark tan. The slices are delicate and easily fall apart.

Packing & Burning: It is frustrating the way the slices are packed. They are on edge, instead of lying flat. The slices were easy to rub between the fingers into small pieces. Although I smoked US without any drying, left out to dry, it was fairly dry in a few minutes.

Taste & Aroma: Something like a mild wheat, hints of leather, mixed with a grassy astringency(maybe due to lack of age), tangy and a little sour, with an occasional hint of cigarette.

Room Note: Pleasant and pleasing

Overall: I like the fact that it is pure VA. For this alone, it deserves 4 stars. Some elements of the taste and aroma are too off-putting. 3.4 Stars.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Bluenoser (34)	2011-05-21		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

I've been waiting for almost two years to review this tobacco. During my initial tin, Novemeber 2009, I knew there was something special going on but it smoked so bitter I simply couldn't have recommended it at that time. So in taking my time with Union Square; aging it, drying it, rubbing it out, smoking it in whole flake etc I have come to the conclusion that it is a very fine virginia. Lots of flavour going on here throughout the smoke. It goes from deep delightful sweetness to sort of earthy bittery grit back to sweet and tasty in nearly an instant. For those of you folks who smoke or have smoked Lustleigh Velvet, a house blend from Martin MacGahey's shop at Exeter UK reputed to be similar to Gallaher's Rich Dark Honeydew, you may find Union Square to have a resemblance to the Lustleigh as that was most definately my experience.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Phototone (9)	2011-05-03		Mild	Very Mild	Mild	Pleasant

This is a pretty subtle Virginia flake. Mostly broken flake in the tin. Very light tasting to me. Good flavor, no topping or casing noticed. You really should smoke this in a Virginia-only pipe as it is a very delicate taste that could be swamped by the ghosts of stronger tobacco from your pipe.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	deepbass9 (7)	2011-04-03		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

I'm all about variety, I'm all about quality and my palate is wider than many. Tobacco moisture, tongue bite, mood, smoking circumstances and other controllable variables won't be covered. This review is based on multiple bowls over time.

This is a favorite straight VA thus far. Union Sq. grabbed me right from the first bowl and held onto me. It's so sweet, but not in a cloying way, and I find the figgy/raisin note is very present in the taste. Usually I'm disappointed that the flavor doesn't come through as much as the aroma, but Union delivered. I consider this a very good tobacco.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	JohnnyMcPiperson (119)	2011-01-28		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

This blend was a very new experience for me, I thought I'd had Va before, but when I tried this I realized that those other blends were not a pure as I thought. It is a very interesting smoke, very bitey for me, I found that it smoked best in clay or meerschaum. I like it a bit on the dryer side, I found that when I smoked it fresh it tasted like wet grass, but when I let it dry a bit it likened more to freshly cut lumber or sawdust, but with a nice sweet honey finish, all interesting flavors to me! I like this blend and I'm curious to see what a five or ten year old tin tastes like, I've got one aging, so with any luck, I'll be able to have that experience!

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Xeneize (275)	2010-10-27		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Mild	Tolerable

Union Square is probably the best Virginia blend by GLPease. Sweet, subtle, and hayey, like all good Virginias, with a citrus flavor given by the bright leaf component.

That said, US lacks the taste that I love in GREAT Virginias, like FVF, IRC Flake and the like. Maybe this is the less "bland" from the GLPease Virginias line, but still not quite on pair of the great ones.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Dr. Scott (82)	2010-05-19		Very Strong	None Detected	Full	Very Pleasant

My first tin was just over a year old. Second tin was just under a year old. Older is better.

The tin aroma is intoxicating, in a good way.

It did not seem too wet straight out of the tin. But even after drying for days, it smoked somewhat wet and hot, and required frequent relights.

The nicotine hit me halfway through my first bowl in a large poker. By the end of my first pipe of Union Square, I was woozy and sweaty and needed to lie down. I smoke a lot of strong tobaccos, and Peterson Irish Flake is a favorite, but this one is significantly stronger. Choose a smaller pipe and go slow. Should have named it Union Buzz.

The flavors are also somewhat overwhelming. Full Virginia Flake is bland compared to Union Square. It is prone to bite, so slow smoking is a must.

This blend has one of the most pleasant room notes that you will come across. It smells the way a pipe should smell.

After leaving the tin open for a couple of days, and still drying the rubbed out leaf for another hour, it smokes much better: less bite, less astringency, more sweetness. When first opened, this tobacco is too young, too wet, and too strong to be an all day or every day smoke. After three months of occasional exposure to the air and storage in a glass jar, Union Square is finally mellow enough to make it into my regular rotation.

Best enjoyed with strong coffee on a sunny morning on the back porch, with the rhododendrons in bloom and the hummingbirds buzzing and a view of the sea, and nowhere to go and nothing to do...

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2010-05-13		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Very Pleasant

For pure VA i , until today, went for FVF but from today on it's going to be this blend.

It has the best VA taste i had and comes in almost broken flakes which i prefer .

I know Greg is known for his Oriental/Balkan/English blends and while this is different to what he is used to blend he didn't forget to surprise us again as he did before.

May the force "blend" with you Greg.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-11-28		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

Union Square would be a great smoking experience for all the Virginia lovers. First of all it has a stronger and sweet smoke than the most pure Virginias on the market. The sweetness is all natural.

The broken flakes are quite moist and needs to be aired. They dry fast and the flavorss I think settles nicely. It has a nice true tobacco flavor which can bite the smokers with a fast puffing cadence.

The rich Virginia flavor and the nicotine dosage are just well for my needs. I will surely will keep some tins of Union Square always in the cellar.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-11-16		Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Very Pleasant

I was excited to try this as it's a new blend to me (nobody imports this into the UK AFAIK) & I love VA like nothing else.

The tin was a little moist, so I let it air 2 hours. Packed lightly into a small Peterson. Rubs out nice & easy into ribbons of long leaf - so far so good and as expected from a GLP product.

The intital few puffs were very light, like breathing air, but this improved into a good, dense, rich, voluminous smoke. I enjoyed the taste, which is like hay, vanilla top notes, richening out into almonds & nougat, toast, oats (oatmeal is present throughout), sometimes cocoa, othertimes tannin- like a merlot wine- all good and complex. not boring, as it changes as you smoke the bowl, almost with each puff. It burns reasonably cleanly and demands go go slow, threatening to bite a bit, but maybe I'm being too greedy and puffing too fast ;-)

I am going to be really picky now. The tobacco was a slight disappointment insofar as I expected a smoother, more rounded, more mature taste and this is at times a bit tangy and atworst slightly sour, like it's a bit green or immature. I'm comparing it to my gold standard VA, Full Virginia Flake. I think maybe my GLP tin could do with cellaring for a year as the FVF has been left to mature 2 years, so perhaps this isn't a fair comparison. My point is that FVF is half the price, so I excpected more from Union Square right from the start. But don't let that put you off. The tobacco is very good, and would be excellent given a little maturing.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-10-25		Medium	Very Mild	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Greg Pease has won my trust by delivering great blends, accurately described, that have nuance and style.

Union Square, straight from a fresh can, might be set aside as bland and grassy. But rubbed out and dried it delivers good but, for me, not yet great virginia enjoyment. The full character of what is obviously high quality virginia tobacco is not expressing itself. There is subtlety and pleasant variation through the bowl down to the dottle

I am convinced this tobacco will mature with grace and bring increasing complexity and depth. It is probably a great candidate for a little jar stoving or home pressing to see where it can be pushed while still fresh ... for the impatient.

Smoked the whole young tin with plenty of pleasure and immediately sent for a half dozen to cellar and age.

Another solid Pease blend with promise it will become something more delicious for the virginia lover with a few months or years in the sealed tin.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-10-18		Very Mild	Extremely Mild	Very Mild	Very Pleasant

I thought I would try this because it is a best seller, I like the cut, and I enjoy VA tobaccos. I find this to be a boring puff. There is no distinct quality that I can taste. Sorry I bought the big can now I have to figure out what to add to it to make it worth while. I will be glad when it is gone.

Well now after smoking this for awhile, and removing the cardboard separators, I think the tobacco has dried enough that by crumbling it some more it increases in sweetness and has a nice comfortable taste. I ordered a big can of Odyssey as well and it is huge as they say, so I tried adding a pinch of Union Square and a pinch of Odyssey about 50/50 and that in a pipe that has been used with other Latakia blends is real nice. I guess if one wants a VA and Latakia, you could use the two separate or as a combo.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-10-09		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

In my years of pipe smoking, I have had the opportunity to sample MANY Virginia blends, some of which remain in my regular rotation and many more that were little more than a passing fancy.

The only thing I can say about GLP's Union Square is that it is simply a sublime tobacco. The slices are nicely cut so as to facilitate rubbing out (if desired) and packing.

Despite its moisture level, the tobacco lights easily and burns steadily. The experience is one of pure sweet, yet tangy Virginia flavour that only gains complexity as the bowl progresses. The tobacco burns down to a salt-and-pepper ash, and a clean Virginia aroma is left in the room.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-09-22		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

The tin aroma of these moderately hard-pressed, thick flakes is of sweet wheat and hay.

The flavor is of purely cane-sugar-sweet VAs without silage or funky ferment. The gold VA's are dominant at first light while the reds ascend as the bowl burns down. The flavor profile is generous, yet narrowly targeted and elegantly crisp.

A fantastic straight VA, Union Square is laser-clean and flavorsome. A nobly aesthetic creation, it is highly complex within a tightly focused range. Though it will undoubtedly age well, it is remarkably smooth with only a month or two in the can. This went best in narrow to medium gauge chambers.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-09-19		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

This was my first venture into the land of straight Virginias, and I was pleasantly surprised. The tin smell was somewhat like a good black tea. It lights up nice with the folding method, and doesn't really require too many relights. Burns nice and cool to the bottom of the bowl. The taste is sweet in exactly the same way that sugar isn't. I'll be ordering more of this soon.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	rosczich (10)	2009-09-13		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

i love virginia blends and of course im a fan of pease blends. this one is outstanding in more then one point, but what makes it remarkable for me is, that it progresses in getting better to the end of the bowl! with most other blends im not really looking forward to the last third of the bowl. only union square makes me doing that. i like the taste of this pure tobacco. its easy to handle in preparing and lightning. the roomnote is good and im happy to have some tins for aging.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-09-12		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

If it were me that was tasked with writing the epitaph of a pipester that hadn't tried this blend, it would simply read:

"He missed Out"

So try this, and I won't feel burdened with writing a fool's epitaph. It's damned good!

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	p4p4 (59)	2009-09-06		Mild to Medium	Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

It taste like a strange Virginia/Burley Blend, earthy and with coffee undertones, slightly arsh and bitter. Dominated by red virginia, rich in depth but not in taste. Yes, it's a good tobacco, but I think there are many other better virginia in the market, and so i'll not buy other tins of this Union Square. If you want a very good Virginia flake, for example,smoke the Full Virginia Flake by Gawith !

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-08-13		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

Sheer heaven, sheer delight. Hands down the best straight virginia I ever smoked. After the first bowl I didn't think it was quite special but it grows on you, it so grows on you ... Try this out, ladys and gents, but please leave something for me. I've found my holy virginia grail. Praise the Dark Lord.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-06-17		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Very Pleasant

I had a chance to smoke a sample of this at 09 Chicago show and also bought a tin. I must say This is one of the best virginias/Blends that has came out in the last 10 years. I do agree with age this will go down as a legend tobacco. This tobacco has a nicotine kick to it. The Tobacco needs to be dried out as how I like mines. Union Square is different that any of the Virginias I have smoked. Even with its nicotine kick it is still very pleasant. Seriously thought I had an Orgasm when smoking union square. This is a connoisseur smoke just straight to the point Virginia no nonsense just straight to business. I emailed Greg pease everytime I smoke this just letting him know how he perfected this blend. He himself on his Email was very excited of the feed backs on Union Square and glad that we all are enjoying it. I seriously hope they will introduce 1 pound tin so I can buy couple of cans for storage.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-06-12		Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

I bought this a couple of weeks ago and tried a bowl right away. It didn't knock me out, but I know how these things go, so I put it away for a bit. I used Pipestud blender technique and got a nice pack. This is an excellent VA smoke and a good change of pace from FVF if you are so inclined. The sweetness can be coaxed out with slow sipping and the burn should be fine if you dry it out a bit. You can also take nice full puffs for a good nic blast, though the subtleties will be somewhat compromised. There is no bite to speak of. Another great GLP offering and worthy of stashing.

Update: Just finishing my first tin of this stuff and have plenty more on order. Make no mistake, the nicotine hit from this tobacco is a wallop, but the flavor is bright and enticing. Excellent smoke, and a new favorite.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-06-03		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

i fell in love with this blend after my first bowl, now just about finished with my first tin i can give this a fair review.

instant classic, thats what this blend is. this to me is one of the more complex pipe tobacco's i've ever tried, it starts out slightly earthy and citrusy. after about 10minutes it begins to taste more like toast with jam, very sweet at times, very creamy and spicy at others. there's so much going on it's hard to pin point every flavor. i didn't think it was possible for a plain ol VA to be so damn good.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-05-23		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

This is quite the interesting blend. A Virginia without toppings? Admittedly, I don't have a huge amount of experience under my belt regarding pipe smoking, but I have surely never heard of such a thing. I was rather excited to discover that my local B&M was carrying this new blend, so I grabbed a tin that had a little over a month age to it (4/6/09). Upon cracking open the sucker, I was met with an intriguing scent. I could definitely smell Virginias in there, but they were unlike any I had put under my nose before. The classic tangy Virginia smell was there with a vague hint of spice, but there was also a strong "earthy" scent in the mix. I found it to be very reminiscent of a burley blend, though it lacked the strong nuttiness. This definitely got me interested.

The cut of this tobacco is a coarse rub, with some larger flake pieces intermingled. The moisture is surprisingly low for what I would expect of a flake tobacco, but this cuts down on waiting for it to dry--I suspect some would even consider it to be just right for packing. The stuff is incredibly soft and flexible, even after a little drying, once again something I haven't seen in most other flakes I have sampled. Incidentally, packing is a breeze. My experience showed it to best benefit from a light packing if using a deep bowl, especially if left a little moist.

Light-up was like any other tobacco. The stuff catches pretty easily, so lighting was a pain-free operation for me. The initial aromas definitely reminded me of other straight Virginias, such as Full Virginia Flake. The flavor, however, is quite a bit different. The more typical flavors of Virginias come through along with the slightest whisper of spice, but there is only a subtle sweetness and a more earthy flavor. The earthiness is very similar to burley, as wildebeest mentioned. Overall, the flavor of the tobacco gave me the impression of a medium Virginia. Compared to FVF, the flavor is a bit less powerful and forthright. Definitely a blend to concentrate on.

In general, this is yet another well-put-together blend by Mr. Pease. I must agree with wildebeest in saying that straight Virginia fans should definitely consider trying this blend, as it offers an experience quite unlike most others. However, I only give it three stars as the lack of sweetness may turn off new-comers to Virginias, and lovers of English/Balkan blends may find it lacking in strength of flavor. Of course, if you think you may enjoy a pure and unique tobacco experience, you should definitely give this blend a try.

2 people found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	gchiaram (12)	2020-07-01		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Tolerable

After having read many compliments about this tobacco, I was finally able to get it. Strictly speaking, it is pure Va and seems quite settled when opening the can. In dry, the aroma reminds me of certain young rosé wines, without attracting me too much. On the first charge I noticed that it was somewhat dry (perhaps too used to SG flakes) and I smoked it enthusiastically, but didn't notice anything special in it. I tried to moisten the broken flakes for a few days and tried to smoke again. I was still disappointed: not very complex, rather smooth and somewhat bitter. I was looking for those sweet notes during the smoke but I couldn't find them. Maybe I am too used to FVF. The smoke is light and light-bodied, but it's Va, and there is no doubt about that, for which I do not regret having bought it. But, in my country the 57 g of Union Square costs more than double that of the sealed aluminum envelope with 50 g of FVF, so I do not think I will buy again when I finish the can.

Pipe Used: Savinelli Oscar Aged Briar 122

Age When Smoked: canned on 07/2018

Purchased From: https://www.patagoniapipes.com

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	sarpgenco (1)	2019-12-11		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

The tin note backs up the claim about Union Square being a blend of unadulterated virginias. In the tin, it offers a very pure, understated, fermented hay, grass and honeysuckle aroma. The sweetness is embedded deep into the smell. First light and the first 1/4 of the bowl tells an entirely different story, though, as it is pretty flavorful from the get-go. Probably the most surprising element of the flavor profile is the oh-so-welcome virginia sweet spice. It's a taste that I am absolutely in love with, and one that I regularly look for in every bowl of virginia flake, from any blender, I smoke. In Union Square, it maybe the only constant that accompanies tens of other variable nuances that come in and fade out during the smoke. And the best part is, it stays with you throughout the entire bowl. My Savinelli Tundra 673 Smooth loves almost all virginia flakes (it is the very pipe I first fell in love with the Dunhill Flake) but that pipe + this blend is almost guaranteed virginia nirvana! Another surprising aspect of the experience is the coolness of the smoke. My 673 Tundra is a smooth finish, and smooth finish pipes usually get hotter than rusticated ones, regardless of your technique. Not with this blend. It never gets any hotter than that pleasant warmness that is a part of pipe smoking enjoyment. Tongue bite is so absent that you might even forget being bit in the past! Preparing this tobacco is also very straightforward. It comes pretty moist, mind you, but I've found out that drying it out is completely unnecessary, as is rubbing it out; simply take 3-4 stripes of flakes (this is a broken flake, so the strips are pretty thin and crumbly) and fold and stuff, snug but not tight. Even despite the moisture level that might intimidate even the experienced virginia flake smoker, it lights up and stays lit very very easily. Cadence is not critical but retrohaling is: the more you retrohale, the more flavorful Union Square becomes, and it starts rewarding you with mild but obvious flavors of vanilla-iy chewing gums of the past (not the sugar-free, overly sweet stuff we have nowadays.) It burns very slowly, and even in a pipe as small-bowled as the Savinelli 673, it takes about 1.5 hours to turn into pure ash. The finish does not get bitter as it usually does with even the best virginia flakes. My tin was pretty fresh, and I can't imagine what some aging can do for this stuff (although I am seriously intending to hoard some and find out!) No, it is not for the newbies, and nor it is a way to ease into virginias for the smokers of aromatic cavendish blends; but it is pure virginia nirvana for the experienced smoker.

Pipe Used: Savinelli 673 Tundra Smooth

Age When Smoked: 4 month old tin

Purchased From: Smokingpipes.com

Similar Blends: Dunhill Flake.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Stefanos (222)	2019-10-30		Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Comes in broken flakes of fairly bright colour. Tin note is intense and quite familiar from other tobaccos (C&D’s Opening Night for example). I find it very citrucy, it reminds me of the bitterness of blood oranges with notes of hay and a little honey. Quite sweet. I guess some kind of topping is applied which however is very congruent with the natural tobacco smell. I could be mistaken though and this could possibly be the natural fermented tobacco taste.

Moisture is perfect. With just a few minutes of drying the tobacco is ready for use. From the first draw it’s obvious this is a top Virginia. Cannot be very complex nor full on taste, yet this is the real thing. Actually, this is for me one of the best bright/red Virginias on the market. The taste is natural, with the sweetness and hay-like aromas of Virginia. Moreover, it’s not bitey, at least for me, and does not get hot. This is a tobacco I would always like to have available. Room note is of natural tobacco, not pleasing to non-smokers but heavenly for smokers. The tin note is the same though more intense than C&D’s Opening Night. Otherwise these two tobaccos if not exactly the same are for me interchangeable.

Similar Blends: Almost identical to C&D's Opening Night and quite similar to Samuel Gawith's Golden Glow..

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Pip (80)	2019-06-30		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

This review is from a first edition 2009 tin that has been aging for the last 10 years. The tin was swollen up like a balloon. At this point, this is probably the best straight up Virginia flake I’ve ever smoked. The tin note is very sweet and tangy with raisin bready overtone and with slightly earthy and musty undertone.

Even after 10 years I needed to dry out for about 30 minutes. I packed up my Peterson 69 and lit her up…..Yummmmy. From the charring light to the bottom of the of the bowl, pure smooth and consistent sweet Virginia flavor with no one component taking the center stage. A true work of art. A very well blended blend with all the flavors coming together one truly harmonious and delicious smoke. No bite to be found no matter how hard you try. Pleasant room note and after taste too. A WINNER!!!!!

Pipe Used: Peterson 69

Age When Smoked: 10 years

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	LannarkGent (145)	2018-09-26		Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

This is the quintessential Virginia flake. The Virginian composition in my humble opinion is near perfect. Even at 6 months, the Aging of the virginias is quite Sublime. It will do nothing but get better as time goes by with a good Charing lied the burn is even and complete. The blend has a fine degree of sugary notes coupled with an outstanding red Virginia flavor coupled with the other well-aged components. This blend is an obvious must smoke for anyone. It will be an absolute Delight to those who love Virginia's. Although I am primarily an English style smoker, I have found this blend to be absolutely delightful. I definitely will be adding more tins to my seller in a very short order. I strongly recommend this blend to everyone who simply wants a completely enjoyable smoke with a marvelous room note, and a flavor that is absolutely delightful from the beginning to the middle, to the end of the bowl. As time goes by I am absolutely convinced this will be one of the legendary blends this gets rated 4 stars although I wish in my heart I could rate it six stars

Pipe Used: Savinelli Oscar Poker

Age When Smoked: 6 months

Purchased From: Indian River Tobacco Traders Grand Rapids Michigan

Similar Blends: Samuel GAWITH FULL Virginia flake.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Rustedrailsmokes (293)	2018-08-17		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

1/22/22 I finally found my 8oz tin that I put away in 2018 and decided to give it a go.

The age (or maybe smoking for longer now) has brought out the flavors in this one and I'm really enjoying it. The broken flakes are darker now than before and there is a sweetness to the smoke which I don't remember from before. There is good body in the smoke and the nic hit seems to be lower than I remember.

------------ 2018 --------------- I received a sample of Union Square in my TinSociety.com box.

I've been wanting to try it as it has come highly recommended by the manager at my local B&M and I'd purchased an 8oz tin which is aging.

I found it to be ready to smoke from the package. The broken flakes are easy to either pack as is, or to break up even further depending on the pipe. I wonder if the packaging has changed over the years as older reviews describe it more as larger flakes it seems?

It was not the wow that I was hoping for, but it is a solid Virginia and my favorite of the "Fog City" series by far. If you do not smoke it fast, there is no bite and it has a good sweet taste to me from the Virginias in it.

I look forward to opening my tin down the road and seeing the difference that some age can make.

Pipe Used: Morgan Bones Author, MM Cob

Age When Smoked: 2018

Purchased From: TinSociety.com Box

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Glorfindel (86)	2015-11-15		Strong	None Detected	Full	Very Strong

This is one of the best VAs I have ever smoked.... Period. I was surprised how quickly I finished the tin, once opened, My rotation ceased being a rotation. Union Square became my everyday smoke till I ran out. Never wet or hot, just a perfect VA taste. Anyone wishing to try their first pure VA would do well to try this one from Greg Pease. No need for me to rehash what a high quality VA is here as others have done it well in other reviews. Suffice to say this is what a VA was meant to be. 4 stars.

Pipe Used: Any

Age When Smoked: new tin

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2013-05-16		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Strong

This has become one of two replacements for the very hard to come by Full Virginia Flake. Enough said!

Oh, and be sure to try it with some age on it!

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-07-27		Mild	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

My second tobacco from G.L. Pease - thanks to the excellent Gauntley's of Nottingham (UK):

I have not been fan of straight Virginias, preferring English mixtures recently, as well as Irish Flake, & Peterson 3Ps. Recently I tried Pease's JackKnife - the finest tobacco I'd ever smoked. I hesitated ordering a VA but wanted to try a flake from Pease.

Well, the first impression was certainly good - lovely, warm tin-note and easy to handle & pack. Smoking this straight out of the tub - I could feel the potential to bite, but nothing like Erinmore or MacBaren's or Dunhill Virginias. This is something entirely different. With other VA's I've tried you get told off for rushing. With this one, you are cordially invited to take your time. It's a far friendlier gesture. After two bowls, I now feel I've finally been given a good example of what a Virginia can be - dry, sweet, a great early-to-mid-day smoke. At £16-odd a tub, it's expensive, but you get slightly more baccy and the quality is worth it.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-04-16		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

It is dried-prune-y and a little sweet as I like my va flakes, but I can only achieve that taste for a short time in the middle of the bowl. During the beginning and at the end of the bowl, it is less sweet and dried-prune-y and has a very savory tobacco taste.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2012-01-15		Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

This one took some time to grow on me, or something. The first 13 smokes were uninspiring at best. Very little flavor, and bitter at that. Then it got better; some fuller flavor with a nice subtle sweetness appeared for the final 8 smokes. Always deceptively strong on the nicotene given the light flavor, or maybe I just pulled too hard trying to get more taste, or maybe I inhaled it a bit inadvertantly. Anyway, for the last 1/3 or so of the tin it was good. No bite. Don't know if I'll re-visit, but I did enjoy it toward the end.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Darth Vader (110)	2011-10-18		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Very Pleasant

First class VA. Ditto the previous reviewer. Beats FVF by a country mile. If you like Va then you will love this. Ageing will make this truly magnificent.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-08-05		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

Wonderful VA flake mixture. This, I think, shows that GLP can compete with the traditional European VA flake blenders, and compete favorably in my view. I flirted with 4 stars, but 3 for now, as I typically prefer some perique in my VAs.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-05-18		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

Very good quality Virginia Flake. Just the right moisture content (slightly moist), for a good slow, steady burn. Quite similar to C&D's "Opening Night", both excellent, in their own ways. If you like premium Virginis's, you won't be disappointed.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2011-01-05		Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

This is a clean natural tasting tobacco the way VAs are meant to be. If you are looking for a pure virginia tobacco this is one that you need to try. Very pleasant aroma.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2010-10-24		Strong	None Detected	Full	Pleasant

I take frequent trips to Virginia City looking for gold. Union Square is almost golden.

Like a lot of G.L. Pease tobaccos, it is not always predictable. Some tins are wet, some are dry. Some have a wonderful aroma, some have almost no smell at all. Some tins are sweeter than others.

Union Square always smokes a bit wet and a bit hot, and it is always very, very strong. This is one of the strongest doses of nicotine out there.

Respect this tobacco. Smoke it slow, and you get more Virginia flavors and sweetness, and a truly orgasmic smoke. Puff fast and hard, and you will end up sick from the huge dose of nicotine and miss out on all the flavor.

Excellent with dark chocolate and/or port wine.

Best if rubbed out. Only three stars because you have to baby it and coax it and you can't just load it and go, and it is somewhat variable from tin to tin.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2010-09-06		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Full	Pleasant

So... here is my review of Union Square. I will make it short and sweet. Delicious! This is after 15 or 20 tins. The last was dated 5 of 09.very good. I packed an Eltang and decided to take a walk and I swear it tasted just like generic cap'n crunch! Awesome. I cant wait for 2029.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	mskywalker2000 (11)	2010-08-30		Medium to Strong	Mild	Mild	Pleasant

This is the best pure Virgina I have smoked thus far. Very bright, for lack of a better word, very clean. It gets hot, too. Takes some getting used to but definitely very high quality, clean and subtle.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2010-08-24		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

This blend marks my third tin on a summer long foray into the world of Virginias. So far, I'd say I'm having fun.

Upon opening my tin of Union Square, I smelled alfalfa with a bit of citrus and saw a beautiful dark brown flake. This tobacco felt very wet to the touch when I first handled it, making it really tough to light and keep lit. I let the first bowl sit over night and then tried again in the morning. By then, it had dried out enough to light easily and enjoy. From there on out, I dried this blend out for about half an hour before smoking and found great success with that method.

Over the course of the tin and having smoked the blend in about 6 different pipes consistently, I can safely say that I like this blend. It is light and sweet with a lot of citrus on the palate and some light spice through the nose.

Simple and straight forward, this blend is tasty without being overcomplicated. Blended with some great leaf, this is definitely a good Virginia blend to try.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2010-08-03		Medium	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant

I totally agree with the tin description written up-there. try it!

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2010-02-12		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Very Pleasant

nice sliced cake-- i am always intimitated by tobacco i must rub out not really understanding the proper method to do this but this pulled nicely into ribbon shreds that fit the bowl seemed to be moist enough to get a light sponge but but to loose to make it hot. I have been smapling VA tobacco as a mid day smoke and find they are sarisfying. Not having smoked a lot of other pure VA i don't have a real basis for comparison but i enjoy this and will have it as part of my inventory. The smoke is clean is natural doesn't try to do to much or be overly complex i like that in a tobacco i just want to smoke it - not a chemist or a gourmet

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	beaupipe (102)	2009-12-23		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

I'm inclined to think Union Square is a truly outstanding tobacco. Smoking it this young is perhaps a little more challenging than it will be at 2 or 3 years old, but even now, it's a pleasure to smoke.

This is a sort of faux-flake tobacco, like all flakes produced by C&D. Purists might quibble at the loose, low pressure squeeze put on this tobacco, but it's also kind of charming. The tobacco is a beautiful orangey-reddish-yellow, a sunset in a tin. And it possesses one of the more interesting noses I've encountered lately—a mélange of hay, bread, orange marmalade, and green tea. I've only ever rubbed this flake out and that has been working well for me. It burns beautifully and long and the bowl flavors progress from sweet and grassy at the top to richer, honeyed Virginia scents in the lower reaches. I simply could not stop smoking this stuff after I opened a 2 oz tin and have since stocked up for the future. I don't think I've ever tried a tobacco that so clearly demonstrated potential for longevity and flavor development.

This is a subtle, beguiling, sublime smoke and highly recommended.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-11-04		Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Very Pleasant

Pure. Virginia. Outstanding. Amazing. No bite, no bark, no kidding. A wee bit of air, a light touch on loading, two vestas and we're off and running. This is my go-to weed after lunch. I generally move to Latakia laced blends during cooler weather, but this will remain the exception. It has a natural complexity that doesn't need any other flavor additions...just good, pure natural tobacco. Brilliant.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-09-06		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

After some years spent exploring Vapers, Balkans, and--I hesitate to admit--some aromatics...but very few, eh....I landed on FVF with a sense that it would become my daily smoke. What can one say about it that hasn't already been said many times: it's just a very fine smoke. So, it was with some interest that I ordered a tin of Union Square, just to expand my experience of straightforward Virginias. Bottom-line: it's a good tobacco, but it isn't FVF. After smoking most of the tin, I went back to FVF and was reminded why I have pounds of it on my shelves. Union Sq. is good enough that I will keep it on hand as a change of pace, but it has a kind of uppity, almost a vaper nip, to it that doesn't make me want to settle in with it. On the other hand, I am gaining a deepening appreciation for what Greg Pease is about, and his Westminster is also my go-to Balkan that I wouldn't want to be without.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-08-17		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable

Yes this is pure virginia...After the smoke taste still there...

When i open the tin; smels great, flakes are broken piece by piece and its very mostiure, it needs to dry like 1 hour...

When its dry easy to fill and easy lit too...

Ofcourse no bite, rich and sweet smokes waiting for you...Finish is dry and very pleasure...

I like this stuff, but this tobacco have a problem a lot of smilar taste there...If you like FVF, this is good alternative...

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-07-19		Mild	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

A predominantly light orangey-brown and tan thinly sliced cake which smells of oatmeal, raisins, hay, and fresh whole wheat bread, Union Square comes ready to smoke straight out of the tin.

It packs well and takes to the flame with ease, offering a classic straight Virginia flavor profile which is initially zesty and just a bit sweet. Over the course of the bowl, the zest decreased and very subtle notes of wood and leather began to emerge, with the sweetness deepening. At the start, Union Square reminded me of McClelland's 5100 - McCraine's Red Ribbon/Flake, although seems to possess more depth as well as bit more body. In the middle it called to mind Rattray's Old Gowrie. At the end, however, it told me that it was a classic American flue-cured Virginia. Quite bite-free, the finish is dry and very satisfying.

It should be said that the sample on which this first impression is based was from one of the first runs and tinned just weeks before opening, but there is every indication that Union Square will be winner. Substantial cellaring is highly recommended.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Emeritus Account (30167)	2009-06-01		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant

Just me Initial thoughts & will update later. It is a sight to behold looking into the tin with a nice aroma, smokes well & sure will improve wit aging. So for now a good 3 star tobacco.

Update: 24 Nov. 2010

I just love this stuff and went through a pound in less than 8 weeks, so had to order more. Hands down my favorite from GL Pease and a favorite straight virginia flake.

1 person found this review helpful.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Sir John Moore (29)	2023-04-15		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

So I put this in my "Carbonara" category. Something simple yet sublime when done well and Mr Pease really has achieved that here. The smell out of the tin is excellent like cut grass left out for a couple of days. More of a broken flake it packs and lights easily with a perfect slightly oily moisture level. A solid mix of earthy, sweet, citrus and bready flavours keep the smoke interesting through out the experience with plenty to draw out. IMHO a superior blend to FVF due to its mechanics and flavour profile with non of the BITE. Similar to G&H Bright CR Flake in flavour profile and composition.

Pipe Used: Multiple

Age When Smoked: Six Months

Purchased From: Smoking Pipes

Similar Blends: G&H Bright CR Flake.

Nobody has rated this review yet.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Nick Prof. (28)	2023-02-21		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium to Full	Tolerable

A great Virginia with the signature of GL Pease. The tobacco flake breaks easily and packs well, it burns slowly and pretty cool with zero chance of bite. Not sure if some folks prefer some drying time, I generally smoke it directly from the jar without letting it sit in the air as its moisture seems to be perfect for direct smoke. Some folks describe predominantly the woodiness and earthiness of the blend with notes of grassiness; I found the grassiness nevertheless to be relatively pronounced from opening the jar to the bottom of the smoked bowl. Mildly sweet and lightly fruity, Union Square represents a top-class straight relatively strong Virginia, one of the finest blends on earth.

Pipe Used: Peterson 408, savinelli 606

Age When Smoked: Fresh

Purchased From: Smoking pipes.com

Nobody has rated this review yet.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	Ferrigno (7)	2023-02-13		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

I'm smoking Union Square in parallel with other straight Virginias: Samuel Gawith's Full Virginia Flake, Gawith's Bright CR flake, Peterson's Flake, Mac Baren's HH Pure Virginia, Dan Tobacco's Veermaster and Amphora Virginia. Union Square is a broken flake -more on the ready rubbed side, actually- light in color, apparently on the dry side, even though in my experience, some drying time improves the smoking experience a lot. The flavour is the one typical of blond virginias, with hay and aromatic herbs on the forefront, together with a mild acetic note. After rubbing and some drying time, the acetic note disappears and the natural blond Virginia flavour comes out, with its citrus, hay, figs and honey notes. In comparison to the other Virginias in my rotation, this one is similar to Peterson's Flake but more intense and aromatic; no dark, figgy, chocolatey notes here, nor any of the toasted, burnt notes of Amphora Virginia and HH Pure virginia. Very sweet and citrusy from the beginning to the end, this tobacco is smooth and absolutely gentle to the tongue, provided it's been well-dried: every time I tried to smoke it out of the tin with no drying time, I got a fastidious tongue bite and an overheated pipe. In addition, the flavour was toned down. On the contrary, when dried, it is very aromatic, burns relatively easily with very few or no relights and is gentle to the tongue.

Pipe Used: Castello, Savinelli, Meerschaum, others

Age When Smoked: 24 months

Purchased From: Swiss tobacconist

Similar Blends: Peterson's (ex Dunhill) Flake.

Nobody has rated this review yet.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	b7q (54)	2023-01-10		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild to Medium	Pleasant

This concoction doesn't have the bass of Cornell & Diehl-Opening Night, but mind you guys, don't let the lightness of its body fool you, the nicotine gets into your bloodstream before you know it, and after a bowl I waddled out of the room, good stuff!

Pipe Used: Briar&Meerschaum&Corn&Clay

Age When Smoked: new

Nobody has rated this review yet.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	JaWiBr (558)	2022-11-17		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable

Tin note of stewed Rasins, spice, and hay. Tobacco broken flakes are not too moist, no drying needed. The yellowish-brown flakes have a little dark brown and tan leaf. It rubs out fairly easy. Burns slow with a few extra relights. The strength is medium to strong and nic is medium. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium and consistent, with notes of strong spiced bread, wood, mild earth, mild sweet grass, mild floral, very mild tart lemon, very mild orange bitter and a mild peppery retro. Virginia is leading, supporting and providing backup. Room note is pleasant to tolerable, and aftertaste is good.

Pipe Used: 2015 XX Ashton Sovereign Prince

Age When Smoked: 4 years

Nobody has rated this review yet.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	RollerOG (2)	2022-10-04		Mild to Medium	None Detected	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable

For a smoke that is pure VA, I am surprised by some of the reviews. It seems to get a bad rap for not having the sweetness or flavor of blends like Carolina red flake, but that’s what I enjoy about this smoke, it’s pure, smooth, slightly bitter, no BS, just a great everyday VA, this will definitely be a blend I will be coming back to often when I want that pure VA tobacco taste and smoke. It may not be a every tobacco enthusiasts dream but the blend brings to the table exactly what it promises and nothing more.

Pipe Used: Briar

Age When Smoked: New

Nobody has rated this review yet.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	DrHoo (20)	2022-09-30		Medium to Strong	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

I can't add much to the previous reviews. This is a fine, pure Virginia Flake. It tastes and burns great. I'd smoke it every night except there are two similar flakes that I like just a tad better, C&D's Opening Night and Carolina Red. I think I prefer a higher percentage of red to bright in my flakes. But this one is good and if you're a Va flake fan, it might just be your new favourite. For me, it burns just a _bit_ hotter and the nic level is a _bit_ higher. I'm not a great cellarer but I'm definitely going to set a can of this aside to see what happens.

Pipe Used: Larger briars

Age When Smoked: Fresh

Purchased From: smokingpipes.com

Similar Blends: C&D Opening Night, Carolina Red..

Nobody has rated this review yet.

	Reviewed By	Date	Rating	Strength	Flavoring	Taste	Room Note
	tobaksrøg (53)	2022-09-03		Medium	None Detected	Medium	Tolerable

Average American straight virginia. Certainly enjoyable to smoke but it doesn't give me much of the pleasure I associate with SV tobaccos. Good entry point to discover GLP VA blends.

Age When Smoked: New

Nobody has rated this review yet.