Maybe my expectations are too high, or maybe I just haven’t yet tried the right coffee snuff. And please, don’t recommend Cafe Royale. That stuff is apparently impossible to obtain in the U.S. if it is available anywhere; I don’t know. Other than Cafe Royale, does anyone have a suggestion for a strong, aromatic coffee? Both Toque Espresso and GH Tia Maria have disappointed me. Love to hear about everybody’s favorites. Thanks!
SG Black Coffee and Snuff Store Cafe Noir are the best coffee snuffs IMHO. I too was disappointed with Toque Expresso, you’d think a snuff named expresso would have a strong coffee flavour not a practically non-existent one.
Tia Maria and SG Black Coffee. A mix of the two creates something similar (if not identical) to Cafe Royale.
Stokes…then what the hell happened with my Tia Maria, which arrived a few days ago from MS? There is *no* discernable coffee flavor in there. To my nose, I get wood pulp and a very nice lightly toasted tobacco…but not a whiff of coffee.
Try Wow Coffee Bite
My next order from MS (not for awhile, as I am now at the end of my snuff budget for the foreseeable future), I will get a variety of coffees. I will not again buy Toque Espresso until Roderick writes me personally to inform me that he has actually put some coffee flavor into his snuff. I’ve now tried a half-dozen Toque varieties now, and can’t believe how er, unfortunate the Espresso is. I guess coffee is very expensive in England? I think the Tia Maria might have been a fluke, as I have never read complaints about the quality of the coffee aroma in that one. I really wonder what happened; the snuff tube was open and leaking a bit when it arrived, while the other two containers from the same manufacturer were either factory sealed or had been re-sealed with cello tape. Very odd.
If the Tia Maria came from a dusty tap box (sneeze box) then there is your answer. I’ve not had Tia Maria myself though. Supposedly Snuff Store’s Cafe Noir is a Cafe Royale rebranded.
I avoided Tia Maria in principle, the name keeping me away for a couple of years … but bought 2 25g tubs of it on a whim and i am glad i did as it is very very nice coffee snuff. I am hoping you got the tap box, as Xander pointed out, in the screw top tub it is delicious. Avoid Irish Coffee and Coffee and Cream, both from Wilsons … hardly a coffee scent to be found.
@ Xander What I have is a 25 gram cylinder with a snap-on plastic lid. This is how the Spartan and Western Glory I got also came. The Spartan was factory sealed, the WG appeared to have been opened and then resealed with Scotch tape, and the Tia Maria lid had no seal at all; while still closed, a small amount (guessing a half gram) leaked into the shipping envelope. I understand that this is an issue with MS as well, but I’ve made so many orders this month and have had to bug Customer Service a couple times already regarding points and some missing items, including a very strange situation where I ordered the Poschl Bundle (a wooden snuff box and 25 g. of SF Sudfrucht), where the schmalzler arrived not in a Poschl bag, but repackaged and dry in a Garrett’s Peach container. I am reluctant to pester tham over a bad $5.00 “tin” of coffee-scented snuff. Again, the point of this discussion is to find a stronger, better-tasting, more aromatic coffee snuff…but if the Tia Maria is stale or whatever, then I’m not making a fair comparison to begin with. The point of this discussion is *not* to complain about MS; I am so happy about their customer service etc. that I have no real complaints. Besides, the damage to the Tia Maria tube and even the schmalzler repack could have happened in transit, going through U.S. Customs perhaps.
Ok. I ordered a bunch of GH mini tubs about the time they first came out from Aireys of Kendal. None of them were taped shut, unless GH have started doing this, my guess is that Mr.Snuff is doing it themselves for freshness/shipping reasons. If one got missed it sounds plausible. Also they should be screw lids not snap on, unless this too has been changed since my large GH order about 2 years ago, I think. And as you say this is not the point, Tia Maria is (should be) a coffee cocktail scent anyway, not a coffee scent. This is supposedly a clone of Cafe Royal: http://www.snuffstore.co.uk/cafe-noir-snuff-snuff-store-p-650.html?cPath=87 Also SG Black Coffee should be similar, as others have mentioned above.
@Uncle_Squinty I have Toque Espresso and The Cafe Noir from snuffstore and they are pretty similar to me. I ordered my Toque Espresso directly from Toque and it has a ton of scent, my Cafe Noir from snuffstore I picked up Januray of this year, and is pretty similar to Toque. That being said neither of the two scream black coffee. For Toque Espresso it almost smells of peanut butter, it has a nutty roasty aroma but it doesn’t come off as coffee to me. I love it, it’s moist and easy to take a massive pinch, but not specifically coffee. Cafe Noir from snuffstore is darker, coarser and has a stronger burnt aroma mixed with new tire scent…it’s very nice, but again does not invoke coffee to me. I have yet to have a snuff that smells like a bag of fresh ground coffee, if that’s what you are looking for and you find it let me know. Edit: Since having pinched both Toque Espresso and Cafe Noir, after about 10 minutes the scents start to invoke a black coffee aroma. Perhaps initially it is so strongly scented it takes time for your nose to mellow into the smell of coffee. Both are lovely.
@Xander. Went back to my previous post. I meant screw, not snap on lids. My error. Indeed they are screw-on lids, and your idea about the containers which were taped is valid. Thanks for the correction.
@ Thorgrmnr Last night I went back to both the Toque espresso and the Tia Maria. While neither invokes the bag of fresh coffee (and yes, that is what I am looking for), but both invoke the ghost of coffee…like smelling the coffee bins in a very old shop twenty paces from the bins. Neither is bad. Neither smells strongly enough of coffee for my tastes…but both are very pleasant. And, both will be good for experimentation. The slight difference in grind might make for an easier snuff and could be the basis for a snuff concoction.
@ Declan Thanks for the tip. I like the Dholakia snuffs I have tried; hadn’t noticed they make a coffee. MS?
Update: Tried Wow Coffee Bito last night. This is a Dholakia product, and it’s much closer to what I’m looking for in a coffee snuff. Would it be sacriledge to mix a bit of the Wow CB into the Toque? The Wow is what I would call a “candy snuff,” if you get my meaning. The Toque is a bit more traditional, I suspect. Kind of like a marriage between a 35 year-old Englishman and an 18 year-old girl from India.
Do it, why not?
Poschl Schmalzler Perlereuter
8truck… Perlereuter is a coffee snuff? Didn’t know. I taste *some* coffee in it, but it doesn’t to me taste like a pure coffee snuff. In fact, my review of Perlereuter was just put up on the Mr. Snuff product page…that means nothing of course, except that I must haave wonky taste buds. Wierd. Just tried S. Gawith’s Black Coffee. Not bad. To tell you the truth, the best coffee I’ve found so far isn’t a tobacco snuff at all; it’s Mentholin from deKralengse. Yes, it has the menthol cooling, but the overriding taste is good coffee.
I just mix them all together wow,SG,toque,paul gotard. I like the mentholin also for the coffee scent. But to drink coffee with menthol is just wrong.
My wife bought some mint flavored coffee creamer. Wrong. And gross.