Once upon a time, you could walk into the proper tobacconist in any English village and there would be several blends of a similar archetype: mostly light grades with some sweetness and floral. Over time, the quality of these style blends frankly deteriorated since they were mostly Over the Counter. The most interesting to me were the Virginia based ones. Golden Age is a re-master of that archetype with less bite and harsh edges. It’s a joyful re-interpretation.
What is an English tobacco? In the pipe hobby, we tend to call Latakia mixtures ‘English’ because of historical reasons regarding Latakia and London. However, there are other English mixture styles other than Latakia. I consider Golden Age an English tobacco even though it has zero Latakia because it’s designed to take the best ideas of blends like Clan, Condor, Mellow Virginia, Gold Block (and others) and present it in a Virginia puro form.
Cheers,
Ken