There’s a nice handful of concentrates out there with “Turkish” or “Oriental” in the name, but how close are they to the real thing? Which ones will be useful, and what application will they be useful for? Well, I’ve got a bunch of them, so I figured I’d let them fight it out and we will see who comes out on top.
HS Turkish Blended: This is a pretty decent one. It’s sort of a generic sweet-ish oriental leaf flavor. Not a lot of body, but it gives a pretty solid foundation to build on. I’ve extracted Turkish blending tobacco for an NET before, and this is a pretty good representation of how that came out. Maybe a little tickle on the tongue that can be interpreted for some spiciness, but mostly you just get a no frills tobacco flavor. Great one to have in the stash, but it’ll be needing some other flavors to help it shine in a mix. It’s not as strong as some of the others, and I would suggest starting off around 3% to test it out solo and in a mix. 7/10
INW Turkish: Not really sure what they were aiming for here, but pretty much the only thing I can taste is cream soda. Nothing really jumps out at me as far as tobacco or spice. I really only get cream soda. That’s not to say it’s useless! I think this could be used as sort of a bridge additive. If you want to marry a tobacco base to some fruity top notes, you could splash in about 1% of this to fill in that middle a little bit, and give the top notes a little something special to sit on. 4/10
INW Tobacco Absolute Oriental: It’s kind of tricky to judge this one on its own, because its main use case is an additive. I mean, I’m sure someone, somewhere vapes Tobacco absolutes solo, but that’s not really my thing. So I’ll take some liberty as judge and OP, and rank this one based on how it does in a mix- which is fantastic. It’s a tad sweeter than some of the other absolutes, but also less grassy. Very rarely will I ever contemplate not adding this to a mix that is supposed to be an authentic tasting Turkish/Oriental. It doesn’t really bring any ashiness to a mix, just some real tobacco taste when added between 1-2%. And if you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you’re chasing that real tobacco taste. Must have in my opinion. 9/10
FLV Turkish: At first, i wasn’t a huge fan of this one. There was something a little off putting about it. An odd sweetness that lays low, but it’s very up front to me. I’ve come around to at least be able to appreciate it. There’s still a bit too much of that odd sweetness in it for me to enjoy it solo, but I can fuck with it in a mix in the 1-1.5% range to get the spice notes, and that off flavor is easily covered for me. 6/10
FE/SC Turkish: Yeeeaaaaah, no. Not a tobacco. Not a Turkish tobacco. If you’ve had more than 5 of the FE/SC tobaccos, you’ve probably picked up on a theme with them. They all taste about 80% the same. It’s like whatever Chinese company makes these things came up with two different base flavors, and then maybe added a couple things different to all of them and just picked names at random. “Sure, that’ll be Turkish. Yeah, fuck it, that one is Blended. This one is dark as fuck, let’s say it’s a black and mild and call it Black Mile.” But don’t get me wrong, they are pretty tasty. And there are a few that stand out and I love to use. They will never be able to carry an authentic tasting tobacco recipe, but they can fit in with them if you get clever. But mostly they shine in what I would say are dessert tobaccos. Turkish is no different. Would I put it in a Camel Turkish Gold recipe? No. Would I throw in some vanilla, graham cracker, and maybe some hazelnut? Fuck yeah I would. 4/10
INW Oriental: So, INW has all these different lines, and 3 of them have an Oriental, and then they have a Turkish. This is the “e-aromat” line version. To make things even more confusing, ECX doesn’t tell you which kind they sell, but it’s this one. Just trust me here. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get on to the flavor. It’s a pretty fucking solid one, actually. It’s at a very nice halfway point between the Tobacco Absolute Oriental and the HS Turkish Blended. I’ve actually used this in place of the TA Oriental before, and it subs pretty well. It’s got a noticeable sweetness to it, and not really much spice, but god damn is it tasty. Definitely going to want to add some stuff to it to fill it out, but it’s still surprisingly close to an NET taste to me. Give her a go at 3% single flavor. Full on flavor and no weirdness. 8/10
FLV Oriental: I wrote the flavor review for this one in the wiki, so I’m just going to steal some things from that.
> I don’t personally get the nutty (maybe I’m turning in to a nutty mute?) and I do get a hint of some spice. Maybe the cedar note I’m picking up as spice. I think this makes a great base to build a Turkish Blend on. I prefer to use this with a little bit of HS Elder Captain over FLV Turkish. Their Turkish gets a bit weird for me. The tobacco in the Oriental is a crisp and bright Tobacco, not completely different than their Cured or Native. Not smoky or ashy really. It’s got some pretty nice body to it. It could probably work as a stand-alone around 2%, but I like to keep it around 1-1.5% and build on top of it.
There you go. 8/10
INW Classic Oriental: See above for the rant about their lines and similar names. Gee golly is this one bad! Flowers. That’s all I taste. If you told me to try this and didn’t tell me what it was, my first guess would be INW Wild Rose Tobacco at like .1%. It’s just not good, and I never bothered finding a use for it. Buy at your own risk. 1/10
TFA Turkish: This one I think is under-appreciated and under used. Don’t get me wrong, it tastes like a fucking antique shop at 1%. But if you have the patience to get a little creative with it, it can do some pretty interesting things in a mix. Definitely something to keep in the .5% MAX range. But it definitely doesn’t lack that spiciness. I’ve messed with it a bit in my Tripoli clone and I think it’s pretty vital there. It gives a little tickle to the tongue. It’s still low enough that it doesn’t turn it in to an antique shop, but it gives a bit of a kick. But definitely don’t use it as a single flavor. Unless you’re in to it. Do whatever you want, really. 4/10
Since I did give one flavor a sort of unfair advantage of judging solely on what it does in a mix, I’ll say it’s a three way tie for first place and hand out three Wendy’s gift cards to the winners:
- INW Tobacco Absolute Oriental
- FLV Oriental
- INW Oriental (NOT THE CLASSIC! That one can suck my dick!)
This is all based on my personal opinion, which could be completely wrong. Let me know where you disagree, if you’ve tried one I haven’t tried, or just hang out and chat in the comments. Tell me what you mix with your favorite Turkish/Oriental. I’ll be around to hang out.
I wish I would have know you were the tobacco expert before I bought all the FA tobaccos 😥.. I’m now forced to slowly add the good ones that you recommend..I’ll get there eventually..
Slow is good. I did my hw, checked with cbv and researched the shit out of some recipes for starters. And when my package came, I mixed up 5 or6 60ml bottles of tobacco vapes and two flavor testers. I barely hit the flavor testers. The vapes were so enjoyable that I had no desire to single flavor test, not even 5ml worth. Sometimes I’ll try them as a comparison next to one of the mixes where it shines to see how all the notes play with it, but that is all just a load of crap. I go right back and vape up the brigade and the cardinals and the native god and the abuelas. Go slow and enjoy the ride.
Like /u/isuamadog said, slow and steady wins the race. Have you tried all the FA? They have their fans, and even I am starting to come around to a couple of them. If you start grabbing a couple FLV per order you’ll be making some good stuff in no time.
God, INW Classic Oriental really is awful, as is Classic Smooth Tobacco, which smells like a mix of barbacue and soy sauce.
HS Turkish Blended gives me some dried fruit vibes and a bit of anise, you don't get any of that?
Got all my Absolutes from one of the Inawera sites (winkel?) in the same order and i can't taste any difference when i mix them in something, do you think i might have gotten a bad batch or something?
I like TFA Turkish @3.5% solo, fite me.
> Classic Smooth Tobacco, which smells like a mix of barbacue and soy sauce.
I tried to use it for that and it didn’t work out haha. I’ve tried using it in real recipes too, and I just could never get it to work.
HS Turkish is one of the few HS tobaccos that I don’t really get that fried fruit from. Maybe it’s just less obvious than most of their others that my brain is just kind of ignoring it. And I also don’t get any anise. I’ll try it again and really try to focus on those and see if I can find them.
I think the difference between the absolutes is pretty subtle. I always think of it like: Virginia: super grassy and sweet. Cuban: little grassy and dry. Garuda: sweet tea grassy. Oriental: sweeter less grassy Virginia. But maybe the differences are more subtle IRL than in my head.
> TFA Turkish @3.5% solo
RIP. The very first refillable clearo thing I bought from a gas station had a tobacco juice with it. The horror of that juice haunted me all the way until I got TFA Turkish, and I realized that juice was probably 10% TFA Turkish. Perhaps that is what has given me PTSD with that flavor.
I mean that i don't taste the Absolutes, like at all.
They make no difference in a mix it seems :(
I was ready for you to school me on a sweet use for Classic Smooth, but guess i wasn't all that wrong haha
Btw, i forgot to thank you for the info, man, really cool of you to keep droping knowledge like this!
Hmm that’s odd. The Cuban I don’t taste as much as I notice it makes things a little bit more dry and smoke-like. Have you tried the ECX Tobacco Absolute? That one is pretty strong and noticeable.
When I first tested the Smooth I had a theory that it might work well in a Latakia type of recipe, but it’s got this wetness to it that I just couldn’t get beyond. I don’t think I’ve completely given up on it yet though. Like, it’s not horrible, but it’s just really weird.
has anybody smoked a real turkish tobacco? i have, the leaves are golden...and cut realy thin and the thin cut tobacco is realy smokey and ligth flavour compared to normal cigarettes. And it is definitely not SWEET. In the south of Hercegovina it is sold in blue 0.5kg boxes.
in my early days of mixing and looking for my tobacco flavour , reading reviews i always had that in mind...and was stupidly buying a variety of turkish or oriental flavours hoping to be able to resemble somthing like the real thing.
tobaco flavors should be produced by smokers or ex smokers
Outside of Camel, I don’t think I’ve smoked Turkish. I had some blending tobacco to make an NET, but never did throw it in the pipe. Could never quite get the pipe technique down to make it enjoyable. Now I’m thinking about picking up some of this to either try the pipe again or maybe just roll my own cigarette out of it. You know, for science.
hahah give it a go...what i love about vaping is that now that i am not stuck on one brand of cigarettes (do not like them anymore) i can have a Cohiba..or a cigarillo...and enjoy that one as well.
what really shits me about tobacco flavours is that they straight out mislead the customers, wich is false advertising because their first customer base is ex smokers and they all look for ashy...smokey...and then the flavour of the particular tobacco.
Who gave anybody the rigth to add bloody vanilla..caramel and other sweet crap into the flavour. Who gave them the right to "take off the harshnes"? Ok ...if you like that kind of flavour then name it " vanilla virginia, chocolate burley etc" and I guarantee you that the sales would immediately drop.
After I started mixing tobaccos and reading up on different cigarettes, cigars, and Pipe tobaccos its made me want to go back and try some different things. Like I wasted all my smoking years on Camel Lights. The trick would be convincing the wife.
What I find even more confusing about the whole tobacco eliquid thing is how some people review them saying they are the closest thing they’ve had to the real thing.
I've had real Turkish tobacco, at least that's what the shop called it... It was amazingly mild in a filter cigarette, with no throat sensation on the inhale and only a slight presence during the exhale, and as you say, a light flavor. I blended it with the harsher tobaccos and made some good combinations.
that is what I meant, and it also depends on the climate ..the water...the way it is dried.
The one i smoked and actually still can buy over there is usually a family tradition...and according to the history...Camerad Stalin used yo love it and had himself regular quantities delivered from that that area of former Yugoslavia.
Great turkish/oriental tobacco comparisons, I’ve only tried the TFA Turkish and I’m enjoying it in a VCT clone mix at around 0.5-0.75%. Will look for your top three and see how they compare when substituted, it looks like the Inaweras are a must-have.
I’ve done a VCT clone and I think the TFA version works pretty well in that one. I think my top three are kind of biased towards the kind of recipes I try to create, which lean more towards authentic, straight up tobacco. For RY4s and dessert tobacco recipes, the others will probably work better. But it could also be interesting to try it out, so I’d say go for it!
Looks fairly similar to what I'm working with, but the addition of Tobacco Absolute is what interests me. I'll try it out once I get my hands on some INW TA. And do you also have a mix that mimics authentic tobaccos? I do enjoy cigars and such, but I'm no pro and haven't tried pipe tobaccos yet. Would be interesting to see how things go together. Thanks for the input!
I used the ECX Tobacco Absolute for it, but one of the INW TAs should also work, but I’d use 1% of those since the ECX one is a bit more potent. It’s not really a spot on clone or anything. Tastes like the real thing is probably using a little more Toasted Almond because it’s got a pretty sharp chemical taste to me.
> FE/SC Turkish: They all taste about 80% the same...added a couple things different to all of them and just picked names at random.
Yup -- I stopped experimenting with them after my love affair with Seven turned sour -- after about a year of it, I either got a bad batch or it turned after a while, not sure. I haven't been buying much lately, but I've got a few in the queue from them to pick up, none of 'em "tobacco" though...
I was never fond of TFA's Turkish after experimenting a few years back -- I always loved the smell of it, but it never quite lived up to the initial sensory experience post-steep. Maybe I'll try it again (stock is three years old, though, stored in glass) now that my hand's a little more experienced...
I put a few orientals in my queue this week, but saw the INW e-aromat and turned my nose up at it for no specific reason... Thanks for clarifying which line -- I'll definitely put it in the queue, now that it's gained some merit against my initial snubbing -- and thanks for the writeup!
Where do you order INW Tobacco Absolute Oriental from? I don't see it listed on BCF.
looks like VapersTek stocks it...
Loving your simple straightforward reviews. Thanks for the work!
I figured this would be a good way to do some simple reviews and comparisons without looking like they are lazy reviews compared to Concrete’s haha. I was kind of wanting to do a mega post with little reviews like this for every tobacco flavor I have, but I’m not sure that would all fit in a Reddit post, so I decided to split them up.
Dumb question time, but what’s an oriental tobacco and what’s a Turkish tobacco? Google says there’s only difference in name. This is a camel type cig? I haven’t smoked a camel in years. I was mostly smoking Peter stokkebye (sp?) ryo Turkish or Amsterdam shag. But I don’t know the difference other than just what I liked.
Edit: battle of the burleys has a nice ring to it.
As far as I can tell, the two are used interchangeably. Camels are a Turkish Blend cigarette, but I believe they also mix in some other tobaccos. It’s kind of hard to tell exactly what’s in them because they seem to keep that kind of info secret. For this post I was kind of judging by how they compared to the Turkish Tobacco I got for making an NET. The smell was very pleasant, sort of sweet, but mostly a sort of robust spiciness. The TFA Turkish I think came the closest to that smell, but it’s just not a very pleasing flavor solo (to me.)
I think my next battle will be Virginia/Bright-leaf/Flue Cured. There’s a bunch of those too. I think I’ve got maybe 5 Burley, but I’ll probably do one of those too just because.
Were any of the other burleys (not FA, INW or FLV) you've tried good at all? I know JF makes one and ECX has a FE/TE labeled Haorizi; I've already made my peace with FE/TE for the most part, so probably won't try it...
I'm just spitballin here, but have you ever mixed all 5 to see if it resembles anything vapable? lol
Oh weird, I was commenting on your comment at the same time you were commenting on mine haha. This can get confusing. I’ve got the JF and SC Burlies (Burleys? How do you pluralize that?) The SC one just tastes like every other FE/SC. My notes for it:
> Burley- tastes about like a lot of other SC tobaccos. In China they must be really in to whatever that Base is. They use it in a lot of these. Not bad, but nothing different
So there’s that. JF my notes:
> JF Burley: something very familiar about this flavor. Not any kind of smoke or ash present. Reminds me a lot of something I’ve tested a long time ago, but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s not horrible, but I don’t get a lot, if any “tobacco” from it.
I need to check in on that bottle to see if I can figure out what it reminds me of.
I have Hairizi but can’t seem to find any notes written about it, which makes me think it was probably the one that was so bad it started making me nauseous haha.
Edit: oh yeah, I also have Delosi Burley and Euro Flavors Burley. Delosi doesn’t seem like a bad flavor, but I need to test it higher than 2% because I don’t get much flavor. Euro Flavors I’ve had for like 10 months and never mixed because it didn’t smell like tobacco.
If there were some way to defeat the florals in FA's Burley, that would be my jam... all day every day. Sadly, though, I've given up on that dream. It makes me really sad; though, I do think it (much like TFA's M-type) could probably be used in a men's cologne or beard oil quite successfully.
INW Burley (used to be sold as such by ECX, but they apparently don't stock it anymore) wasn't good either.
To me, FLV Classic Cigarette tastes kind of like a good version of FA Burley. Still crazy strong and a bit of a pain to work with, but it’s at least usable. I could never use FA Burley. I think I need to retest INW Burley because from what I remember, I couldn’t really taste anything at all. Maybe just a little bit of sweetness.
My go to Burley lately has been something like 3% HS No. 5 and 1.5% FLV Red Burley.
I hadn't put much thought/research into FLV's "cigarette" flavors -- I've read a couple of reviews on both, but I've been stand-off-ish to them, mostly because I've been underwhelmed by most -- chased it for so long that I've lost interest, not to mention it's been several years since I smoked and pretty much lost that "desire". It still comes back to me, like when I'm drinkin, but I've remained off'em despite my drunken desires.
I'll throw'em in the queue since you think they might be something worth having -- Still hopeful of, one day, finding my "stuck on an island with one mix" flavor...
> retest INW Burley...I couldn’t really taste anything at all. Maybe just a little bit of sweetness.
yep -- I'd say don't bother; I don't recall much flavor from it at all either, just some non-descript sweet with, possibly, a touch of lifeless bitter. I don't even think it smelled of anything outta the bottle. result for me was a whole lotta nothin'...
I also like StixxMixx Turkish Oriental. NET also sells a solid Turkish mix. I'm a big fan of HS Turkish mixed with FA Honey. FLV Turkish..no matter what percentage I use it at, is blah. I did use it at one point to build on HS Turkish. I throw it in the same boat as FLV Oriental. I get a nutty raisin profile with FLV Oriental.
I was hoping you’d stop by with some info on the NETs. Those are the only ones I don’t buy because I’ve probably got a liter worth of NETs that I already rarely use, so I can’t bring myself to buy some. I see your recipes popping up and start reading them thinking, “Hell yeah I want to mix that!” And then see they have a Stixx Mixx, but I think I’m just going to say fuck it and mix them with some of my own NETs that I think will be close. Because they always look good.
I’ve only been able to use FLV Turkish in a couple recipes, and really only one of them came out pretty good, and that’s probably because I’ve got INW Shisha Lime hiding a bit of the funkiness. FLV Oriental, on the other hand, I like quite a bit. But then again, nutty raisin sounds delicious to me haha.
My two issues with NETs are the coil gunk and the hugh percentage needed in my recipes. Still prefer non-NETs in a lot of situations. I might mess with FLV Oriental a little more. I picked up Black Jack (INW). Have you messed with that at all? I am getting licorice.
I have the same issues with NETs. Mostly the coil gunk. I did an extraction with some pure grain alcohol in hopes it would cut down on some of that, but I haven’t done much with it besides mix a single flavor test.
I’ve been trying out INW Black Jack in this recipe for about a year now. Gave up on it a while back because I was also using INW Tobacco Plum with it, and couldn’t get it to work. This most recent version is pretty good though. To me Black Jack tastes a lot like Gold Ducat with a little bit of black licorice.