Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Romman Grape Review

Brand/Flavor:
Romman Grape

Methodology:
-20 hits/person across 30 minutes
-3 individuals in the circle
-40mm Golden coal offest holes with a ventilation hole opposite
-Foil rotated every couple hits
-Ophelia filled with ice water

First Impressions:
New Romman box design, red and black with a picture of a bunch of grapes on the front. Typical Romman cut with a few small stems. Shisha is very juicy and smells strongly of grapes, not a perfectly natural smell, more like grape Jolly Ranchers or grape jelly, but a bit less sugary (a bit like wine).

Post Mortem:
Cooked all the way through, only 5% retaining any kind of moisture at all.

Pros:
-Decent smoke
-Moderate buzz
-Flavor matches smell

Cons:
-Flavor is unexpected, not very sugary sweet
-Flavor is not incredibly strong

Andrew's Thoughts:
I picked this up at Trade Roots (the local head shop) on an impulse, but I've always wanted to try grape shisha, and Romman is a consistently solid brand. From a distance, the shisha smelled good, like Welch's mixed with Manischewitz. Up close, however, the smell was overpowering and somewhat unpleasant. The taste of the smoke was quite similar to the smell, a somewhat bitter grape jelly. Though the smoke was thick (we even blew some smoke bubbles), I really wasn't satisfied with the flavor. I had hoped for something sweeter and more obvious, and while the grape wasn't bad, it just wasn't what I was looking for.

Eric's Thoughts:
I've been wanting to smoke a grape flavor for a while now, and while this wasn't quite what I was expecting from a grape flavor, I did enjoy it. I feel that the slight lack of flavor and lower density of smoke might come from the fact that we had a hole opposite the coal pattern, thus diluting it all. So I feel that this flavor, when smoked with a more airtight seal, will probably yield a better result. The grape as stated above isn't an insanely sweet sugary grape, but rather a tart grape flavor. It has great depth and I would definitely continue smoking it.

Peanut Gallery:
The grape was…decent. Nothing incredibly special, but it wasn’t bad. The flavor was not as strong as I had hoped, nor as sweet as I was expecting; rather, it was mild and a bit on the bitter side, in a good way. We likened the flavor to concord grape jelly. Interesting, subtle, and something I will probably smoke again.

Conclusion:
While this flavor might not be what one would expect out of a grape shisha, it's hard to say that it's bad. It is an accurate grape flavor, subtle and deep. If you're looking for a sugary-sweet grape, this isn't it, but Romman Grape is unquestionably grape flavored, and a solid smoke to boot.

B

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