Is my tongue not good enough? (Rizla Green Regular)

Member Name: Shazzy

Product:	Rizla Green Regular
Date:	30/06/02 (1147 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Available in almost all shops that sell tobacco

Disadvantages: You can't rely on them to stick!

I do enjoy the sensation of having something smooth and silken to roll between my fingers. As my thumb and fingertips gently grip it, slowly moving back and forth, I get a feel for its bulk and calibre. My years of experience tell me whether it’s just the right thickness, and as I lower my lips towards it, a sense of anticipation runs through me as my tongue slides slowly along its length. If it's too thin, I know that true satisfaction is unlikely to be forthcoming. Too thick and it’ll be far too difficult to suck.

Rolling a hand-made cigarette is almost an art form and there’s something immensely satisfying about producing the perfect rollie that only a fellow hand-roller would understand.

Rizla Green are a medium weight hand rolling paper that are sold in booklets of 50, and for years they were my papers of choice. I’d tried a couple of others, but these were just the right weight to roll smoothly in the hand and the angled corners made the process a little easier, something that would be especially handy for those who’ve never hand rolled before.

However, Rizla Greens have recently become a rather doleful story. The first thing I noticed was that those handy little corners were becoming inconsistent. Sometimes only one corner would be cut and now and then there would be no cuts at all. At first I thought I’d just bought a pack from a bad batch that had somehow slipped past the keen observation of the quality control people (do they really have people looking at every paper that comes out of the machines?) but when subsequent faulty packs turned up, I started to wonder whether my faithful papers were on a downhill slide and about to lose their previous quality for good.

I figured I could live with it though. The cut-offs weren’t that important to me anymore. I could’ve switched to Rizla Orange, which are basically the same papers but without the cut-offs, or even Rizla Blue,
which are lightweight and self extinguishing. But I’m very much a creature of habit, inclined to stick with what I know even though the advertising industry are constantly throwing alternatives at me (although not in the case of smoking paraphernalia of course, because there are lots of regulations around that these days) and continued to buy Rizla Green.

I started to hear other complaints though. Several people had said that Rizla seemed to have reduced either the amount or the quality of the gum arabic they use. That’s the stuff you lick to seal the paper, in case you really don’t know. I hadn’t noticed myself, and thought perhaps I’d either been very lucky whenever I bought my papers, or that my licking skills were above theirs. Maybe I left just the right amount of saliva along the edge, or perhaps it could even be the speed at which I moved my tongue, or how quickly I rolled after dampening the gum. I’d never made any close study of their rolling expertise, or lack of it, and quite honestly, if they couldn’t roll a decent fag, that was hardly my problem. In fact, I felt quite self-satisfied that I, the queen of the rollie, wasn’t experiencing similar problems.

But then disaster struck. Half way through a nicely built roll-up, the paper came unstuck and tobacco, with its glowing end, fell all over me. I burnt my blouse and yelled a few unsavoury words, mostly aimed at the Rizla company. Then it happened again. And again.

Ok, maybe it was a faulty pack. They were binned and I dived into my handbag for another pack. Damn! Same problem! Obviously, they were a bad batch. I’d bought several packs at the same shop and would undoubtedly need to bin them all.

A few weeks passed without any problems. Then it happened again. Just as I went to light my stick of nicotine and tar, the paper slowly began to unroll. What on earth was happening? Was I losing my technique?

<br
>Quite honestly, I don’t think so. I’ve been using Rizlas for about 18 years, and believe me, I roll lots of them every day, far too many really, and until now, I’ve never experienced problems. Sure, there are times when I’ve made a right balls up of it, but I’ve known that it’s been my fault; I’ve made them too wet, or not quite wet enough. What’s happening these days is different. I just know I’m not doing anything different to the way I have during all those years of rolling, and I’m left with no doubt in my mind that they just don’t have the same sticking quality anymore.

One friend uses a rolling machine, and is also experiencing the same problems. In fact, she was amongst the first to start complaining about it. So even when an equable amount of pressure is applied along the length of the paper, they can’t be relied upon to do the job they’re intended for.

Whether the Rizla people are trying to save money by cutting back on the amount of gum they use, or whether the gum just isn’t up to it’s previous standard anymore, I really couldn’t say, but that something has happened, that much I’m certain of. I’m just not satisfied with them anymore. From now on, whenever a choice is available, I shall be using Swan. They may not feel quite as smooth as Rizla, but the burn rate seems to be about the same and, more importantly, they stick. There are worse papers out there too, but until Rizla pull their socks up and start producing papers of their earlier, consistent high quality, they can go take a running jump as far as I’m concerned. And I’ve told them so too!


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