I obtained five bags ~12 grams each during my stay in Morocco, Taroudant. Only by asking local guy for guidance one can find the dealer on souk market. There is no official distribuition since snuff is claimed to be black market of tobacco here (no tax).
The price proposed is 50 dirham for a bag, so around 5 euros. Bargain (as for everything you buy in Morocco) is the way to go, also the more you buy the better price you can get.
The snuff is nicely wrapped with plastic fabric, so it can stay fresh forever. As soon as I untied the bag, the ammonia blast reached my nostrils, followed by earthly-sweet tones. I believe the manufacturers recipes differ across the country, or even between batches. This is just an example what one might generally expect. The tobacco used is something between rustica and regular tobacco. The purity of product is high, there is no sand or stems that I noticed and the batch seems quite consistent. Grind is medium, it is fluffy and easy to take because of high moisture. Light brown in color.
The first thing in the nose is simply good burn and almost a barnyard note (but not too pronounced in my opinion). So basically, we have well alkalized snuff, plain and natural tobacco aroma, thats all…
Then suddenly, after a good one minute - the burning increases! There is a familiar feeling to that of a mexican cuisine. Oh, it is not just alkalizer - it is a red chilli kicking in. One might become discouraged, “I am not big fan of hot food”. No worries, the chilli spice is actually not too much, not too little here. Perfectly ballanced with tobacco, as every thing should be. With time, it becomes a bit more and more pronounced, but stays torelable, even for a novice snuff taker I would say. It provokes nasal irrigation effect, way better than menthol which have a clogging effects after some time.
My theory: spice is used here for practical reason. Just like drinking hot tea in the middle of the desert, it provides a way to induce sweating to some degree. So it actually may have a cooling effect in extreme temperature when sniffed vigorously.
I rate this snuff as a solid 7/10 since it is not something complex, but it is for sure a lovely handmade treasure with a good vitamin N content. I think the spice make this good plain snuff entertaining. It could even be too bland without it. Inspired me to add a touch to next homemade (eg. using Fubar BOHICA). I keep it in a moroccan snuffbox as a souvenir.