Samuel Gawith: Black XX Rope 50g Pipe Tobacco
Product Number: 003-059-0012
Samuel Gawith was the son-in-law of Thomas Harrison, a snuff manufacturer who moved his trade and equipment to Kendal, Cumbria, England from Scotland in 1792. Gawith inherited this equipment from Harrison, and the company has been crafting premium tobacco since, with one of Samuel's two sons continuing the brand while the other joined with Henry Hoggarth to establish Gawith, Hoggarth & Co. Though offering separate blends, both brands remain forever linked and still share the same manufacturing facility in England's Lake District, utilizing processes and techniques that date to the brands' 1792 roots. In many of their mixtures, Samuel Gawith maintains the standards enforced by the United Kingdom's strict purity laws of the 19th and 20th centuries — such laws dictating how much and what type of flavorings could be added to pipe tobacco and ensuring that sub-quality leaf wasn't hidden under the veil of exorbitant toppings.
Like Brown No. 4, Samuel Gawith's Black XX is a traditional rope-cut pipe tobacco of straight Virginias. While Brown No. 4 foregoes any heat treatment, Black XX does undergo such treatment, contributing to its extra-dark color and distinct, slightly more mellow flavor profile — though still remaining quite full-bodied compared to other blends.

Your Price
Sold Out- Components: Virginia
- Family: Virginia
- Cut: Rope
Some reviewers were not incorrect when they wrote this blend will taste at times like burning plastic and at times like really fine barbecued beef “burnt ends”. But luckily for me, it was far more of the latter. The burnt plastic taste may surface near the beginning of the bowl, but keep puffing and you’ll get that flavor of burnt ends from some solid Kansas City barbecue joint. Admittedly, at certain times you will experience a third taste, and not a savory one, as if you licked the barbecue grill after your meat was cleared off and the fire had cooled. Burnt beef taste fused with WD-40 grease and congealed beef fat. Why would I subject myself to this, or pay for such tobacco, some will ask themselves.
Well, you could still cut, dry and mix this blend with your Samuel Gawith’s Brown Number Four and create a sort of “Black and Tan beer” version of tobacco. Bolder, richer, mellower and more bitter in taste than pure Brown Number Four, but slightly less nicotine. And Brown Number Four sure delivers Vitamin N in spades!
Also with every tin of Black XX you purchase, you are encouraging the survival of rope/twist tobacco, a centuries-old tradition the English thankfully keep alive. And how many other actual black tobaccos have you encountered. Unique, SG’s Black XX certainly is.
4.5 stars....Read More