An enigmatic figure of his time, Charlemagne (747-814) is best remembered as the king that managed to carve an empire out of the kingdoms in Central Europe. Doing so, he effectively established the Holy Roman Empire that went on to live on until 1806, after Emperor Francis II dismantled the throne when Napoleon conquered the German kingdoms. In honour of this important man, who had a special bond with the city of Aachen, Schneiderwind (coincidentally located in Aachen), decided to develop a special tobacco named after him. This they aptly called Carolus Magnus. Does this tobacco live up to the great man himself? Let’s find out.
A grand experience
What immediately stands out with this tobacco is the great care that the company put into making the box where the tobacco is kept in. With a bordeaux-red kind of colouring and golden imprinting, one gets an immediate royal feeling with this tobacco. The leafs themselves are kept in a golden plastic bag, nicely keeping them damp. If one wants to have some more dried leafs, one can simply fill the box with the contents of the bag.
But then what about the aroma of the tobacco? In the case of Carolus Magnus, Schneiderwind went ahead and sought out tastes that befit royalty. For starters, there is that well known liquid that in our times is still regarded as the nectar of life, namely honey. Combined with this, we’re also promised the taste of chocolate and lastly, almonds. Like with Wintertraum, this tobacco is highly aromatic and has got a sweet sense to it. The leafs that are used are comprised of strains of Golden Virginia, Burley, and Black Cavendish. The pricing luckily, is not that much on the kingly side. For € 23,80 one receives a kingly box containing 100 grams of this tobacco, giving us plenty of bang for our buck.
Royal enjoyment
Let’s move on to perhaps the most important impression we may get, in other words, what does this tobacco smell like when we open the bag? To put it mildly, the smell is simply wonderful. One first receives that tangy smell of honey that puts itself directly within ones nostrils. When you smell it more, you are also getting those hints of dark chocolate, putting a bittersweet aspect to the tobacco. Almonds are not that directly noticable, but we will get back to that in a moment. All in all, if one would only buy the tobacco to use it as some sort of air refreshener, or simply to enjoy all this sweetness, one could not make a better choice.
Fitting my pipe was an easy task, and after lighting it, I was pleased to find out that the smells I got from the tobacco came back into its taste. Most prominently, the chocolate and honey switched prominency. The bittersweet sense of chocolate immediately sets into the temple of your mouth, followed by the sweet sense of honey, nicely complimenting the bittersweetness of the chocolate itself. Surprisingly, after exhaling the smoke, that was precisely the moment that the taste of almonds set in. With the sweetness of the honey still slightly lingering in the mouth, that sweetness now got an extra dimension with the roasted nutiness of the almonds. Almonds being more on the sweet end of nuts, this all came together just rightly. Although the chocolate is definitely the taste that sets in the most, everything is just rightfully balanced with each other.
Tobacco for a king
All in all, I feel that it is quite right to dedicate this tobacco to Charlemagne. With its combination of sweetness, bittersweetness and nutiness, one feels like he’s getting the best that the world has to offer. If you feel like you want to sort of travel back into history and know what it feels like to be a king, look no further than this tobacco. In other words, gloria Carolus Magnus!
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