Tasting “Bond Street”

The history of the brand goes back to 1902. Philip Morris, the company’s founder, owned a boutique on Bond Street in London. 1902 was the year when Albert, King of Belgium, one of Morris’s great admirers, granted the boutique the title of royal tobacco merchant. Since then (by the way, the very first brand name was “Old Bond Street”) cigarettes with that name have gone through a long and distinguished period of development conquering new markets. In the mid-90s, there was a rebranding process — a new, fresh design and solid packaging was introduced. A new “premium” version of the Bond Street Special was launched in 2006, but was discontinued in 2009. The Compact line replaced the Special in the same year.

We now have the Red Selection and Blue Selection cigarettes.

Bond Street Red Selection. This is the “red” classic of the brand. The design has changed a lot over time, with the only thing similar to the old design is font of the brand name. The tutu became more modern with rounded edges. Only a couple of small elements from the “corporate red” remained. The family coat of arms of the brand, or rather half of it, is now just a design element.

The design of the cigarettes is quite smart and memorable. The name of the brand is made on the “cork” filter paper and appropriately “masked”. The emblem, the name of the cigarette brand and the divider strip are in “silver” for some reason. Cigarettes in the so far traditional king size format, with a regular and rather soft acetate filter.

The pouch in the cigarette is light, dominated by fractions of yellow and light yellow. The cut consists of ribbons of varying widths and lengths. Surrogate leaf is present, but not much of it. Cigarette specifications: 10 mg tar, 0.7 mg nicotine.

Smoke flavor… pretty common for modern cigarettes. It’s the cigarettes, not the tobacco in them. Dull, no “zest”, pretty average. With my eyes closed, I can’t tell Bond from L&M or Winston. I admit that they are different, but the difference can only be understood by a longtime smoker, who consumes a lot of them.

Bond Street Red Selection. The pack of this type has the same design as the previous one. The only difference is the color of the decorative elements, which are blue.

The pack contains the same legend of the “selected tobacco” and twenty cigarettes in king size. The design of the cigarettes is still memorable, although with the only difference — the coat of arms and the variety of cigarettes in blue.

The strength of these cigarettes is significantly lower than the “red” version: tar 6 mg, nicotine 0.6 mg. And if the variety is “lighter” and the filter is not charcoal and perforation is missing, then the conclusion is only one — the strength of the bags “knocked down” diluting it with a surrogate leaf. The color of the bag of cigarettes is indistinguishable — the same light, with almost equal amounts of yellow and light yellow fractions. The slicing differs slightly in the presence of large chunks of leaf. The surrogate leaf, on the other hand, is really more.

The taste of “blue Bond” is also not original. At really lower strength, the taste appeared a taste of burnt paper, not a lot, but there is. The tobacco flavor was not and is not. However, I will not call these cigarettes disgusting. I met cigarettes with about the same amount of surrogate in the bag, and they were really disgusting. But the Blue Bond does not leave that impression. Together with the “strength” of cigarettes gone and satiety — you can at least every 10 minutes to smoke, still do not get high