Tasting of Sobranie cigarettes.

We’ve already featured posts about the history of the brand and a tasting of the ‘cigarette-case’ versions of the brand in the feed. Now, let’s move on to other common sorts. Specifically, the “classic” Sobranie Blue and Sobranie Gold series.

I’ll start with the “classics”, and the first one is Sobranie Blue. All cigarettes of this line are packed in an octagonal pack of “designer cardboard”. The design is modern and eye-catching — gold embossing of the brand name, partially textured pack surface and a branded holographic triangle.

There are twenty king-size cigarettes inside the pack. The design is a white cigarette with the brand’s name embossed in gold on the filter and a distinctive dividing strip on the collar. In recent years, the manufacturer has introduced LSS (Less Smoked Smell), or smoke reduction technology. The owner of the technology, Japanese corporation JTI, LSS consists of a special treatment of cigarette paper that eliminates the smell and flavour of tobacco when smoked.

The brand has introduced a double acetate filter. The charcoal grit saturation is quite dense. The filter mouthpiece is made of a fairly thick paper and does not get wet or crumple when smoked. By the way, note the charcoal-free filter half — this is another JTI technology, namely the Airstream Charcoal Filter. As far as I know, it is used only in the Sobranie brand. The idea is to duplicate or replace the traditional filter perforations.

The cigarette has a faintly contrasting light-coloured tobacco blending inside, with a colour range from yellow to medium-brown. The blending is thinly cut, no surrogates.

You can smell tobacco and the scent of propylene glycol from the pack and from the cigarette. Characteristics: resin 5 mg, nicotine 0,5 mg.

Smoke is medium-bodied, fairly tasty with a slight tobacco sweetness. Despite the lightness, these are quite heavy cigarettes. In the end — good cigarettes, worth the price, leaving a rather pleasant fragrance. In my humble opinion, these are some of the best cigarettes in their category. I unfortunately couldn’t find a strong option, so we move on to the next “classic.

Sobranie Gold. The pack is the same type as Blue, but in “gold” tones. Same textured cardboard and holographic pyramid. Beautiful and stylish.

Exactly the same cigarettes, but the dividing strip in ‘gold’ is the designation of the cigarette variety. These cigarettes have the same technology — LSS and Airstream Charcoal Filter.

The only difference between the filters is a single perforation line. Otherwise, they differ externally only in the colour of the ribbon. The fundamental difference is the specifications: 3 mg resin, 0.3 mg nicotine.

On the inside the blending, however, there is a slightly more contrasting, light yellow fractions of tobacco leaf present. No surrogate is seen as well. The cut is fine and neat. There is virtually no aroma from the pack and the cigarette smells of tobacco and propylene glycol.

We found differences in the taste of the smoke as well. In this variety, the tobacco-sweet note is heavily diluted. That is, it is present, but in a much smaller volume. Apparently, you have the perforation to thank. This variety would suit those who like cigarettes “lighter”. In the end — the same, very decent cigarettes with a pleasant taste. I noticed that if the smoke is exhaled through the nose, the taste is stronger than when puffing.