by Aaron Glassman

We like to call Henley Cigs one of our “hidden gems” in the e cig industry. You won’t see them popping up on e cigarette review sites as much as you do some of the more popular ecig brands, but that doesn’t mean they’re not a quality product. Henley is a relatively new entrant to the market and, after giving them a try ourselves, we have a feeling that they’ll be around for some time.

We like to dig into the story behind the different brands, and really like what Henley stands for. Like us, the founders of Henley were smokers of traditional cigarettes and wanted to make a healthy change in their life and took up e cigarettes. They liked the new experience, but weren’t completely satisfied with the options out there, so they decided to start their own brand. They spent tons of time in research and development, product trials and testing, and would settle for nothing less than the best. We can honestly say they have a product they can proudly stand behind.

That said, let’s get into our full review of Henley Cigs.

Henley Kits

The grand daddy of the kits at Henley Cigs is their Deluxe Kit. This is one of the most sleek and stylish kits that we’ve gotten our hands on. It sells for $69.95 and comes with the following

  • Personal Charging Case
  • 2 Rechargeable Batteries
  • 5 Flavor Cartridges
  • 2 USB Cords
  • AC Adapter

The highlight of this kit is the personal charging case (PCC). This thing is sleek. It works as a carrying case to store your e cig batteries and cartridges, but also doubles as a mobile charging device. It fits easily in your pocket, about the size of a traditional pack of cigarettes. You’ll never be without fresh batteries.

Now, a lot of brands sell PCC’s. What puts Henley’s over the top is what it does beyond just keeping your batteries charged. It has inputs allowing you to charge your mobile devices (phone, iPod, iPad, etc.) as well it’s basically a portable outlet in your pocket. They put a lot of thought in this device and it definitely shines. Take a look at it below.

Deluxe Kit

Buy a Deluxe Kit here

While the Deluxe Kit is pretty sweet, when talking to the reps at Henley they say what they are really pushing is their Express Kit, so we gave those a try as well. This is a leaner, more convenient kit than the Deluxe and a little lighter on the wallet. With this kit you get the following for $19.95

  • 1 Rechargeable Battery
  • 1 USB Charger
  • 3 Flavor Cartridges (Original or Menthol)

This is a pretty good deal, as buying these items separately will cost you well more than $20. There’s no sacrifice in quality with this lighter kit, it’s the same batteries as you get with the Deluxe. Nice, big pulls of vapor and the cartridges are pretty tasty. If the three cartridges aren’t enough, or you want to try something other than Original or Menthol, you can always pick up cartridges a la carte as well, available in ten different flavors and four nicotine strengths.

Express Kits Original and Menthol

Henley Cartridges

We tried out a bunch of the cartridges at Henley and really like them all. As mentioned in the beginning of this review, the people behind Henley did a lot of R&D and trials before they put their products on the market, and that didn’t just mean the batteries, it includes the cartridge flavors. You can tell they put a lot of time into them until they got them just right. Full, rich flavor and big hits of vapor. The Original flavor is one of the truest tobacco flavors we’ve tried, and the others are great as well. Their ten flavors consist of two Tobacco varieties, Menthol, Cherry, Clove, Watermelon, Vanilla, Cappuccino, Strawberry, and Pina Colada. Some unique ones in there that you won’t see at other brands of electronic cigarettes. All are available in four nicotine strengths.

Click here to start shopping for Henley Cigs

Even better, they have a program they call the Cartridge Club. It reminds us of the Home Delivery Program that we write about in our Ever Smoke electronic cigarette review. With this program you get monthly deliveries of your favorite cartridges, so you don’t have to remember to re order, and you get a discount by enrolling. Sign up for 6 months of deliveries and you get 20% off, 9 months for 30% off, or 12 months for 40% off! If you know you’re going to be fiending on Henley Cigs, and we have a feeling you will, there’s no reason not to sign up for this program.

Final Thoughts on Henley Cigs

You get the picture by now, but we really like this brand. They don’t quite have the market saturation yet as they are relatively new compared to the big players in the industry, so it’s a “hidden gem” of ours for now, but we have a feeling that it won’t be kept secret for too long.

What do we love most about Henley?

  • Sleek design and technology
  • Strong batteries big vapor production
  • Great cartridge variety rich and unique flavors
  • High quality craftsmanship the Personal Charging Case is great
  • Cartridge Club program gotta love getting regular deliveries of cartridges at a discounted price

One way to make a great deal even better a coupon code. The fine folks at Henley Cigs set us up with a discount for our readers. Simply enter the code HENLEY10 at checkout to get 10% off your order! Check them out now by visiting

No longer blowing smoke? e-cigarettes could surpass traditional brands, experts say

Vbc value brand cigarettes – reviews & brand information – sanchez, miguel a. miami, – serial number: 76514483

WINSTON SALEM When change has come for tobacco during its nearly two centuries as a star of North Carolina&#x2019 s economy, it usually has arrived at a leisurely pace.

Not this time. The crop and products made from it face something that has gutted or transformed many other industries in recent years a disruptive technology.

Electronic cigarettes are winning over smokers so quickly that some analysts predict the battery powered newcomer could come out on top of traditional cigarettes within a decade. That&#x2019 s unsettling for the farmers and manufacturers who still make North Carolina the national leader in tobacco production and rivaled only by Virginia in cigarette manufacturing.

E cigarettes heat a liquid, usually containing the highly addictive stimulant nicotine, into a vapor that users inhale. Nicotine for the liquid is extracted from tobacco, but experts think it may take less tobacco to make the &#x201C juice&#x201D than required for an equivalent amount of traditional cigarettes.

That economic threat can also be an opportunity, partly because of the state&#x2019 s decades of tobacco expertise and partly because of an odd bit of luck involving a plant called clary sage.

Some think that e cigarettes may even offer a way to slow the gradual slide in tobacco sales for domestic use, a slide that began decades before the advent of e cigarettes.

&#x201C It has been interesting to watch e cigarettes move from almost a novelty to a trend,&#x201D said state Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. &#x201C The bad news is, if it results in the decline of demand for traditional tobacco, then we are going to have a new set of problems, but the good news is, yes, we are poised to take advantage of it.&#x201D

This may be the key year in North Carolina&#x2019 s effort to muscle into that leadership role. One reason is that Big Tobacco is becoming Big Vapor, too Major tobacco companies are moving to get ahead of the potential shift in the market by selling e cigarettes themselves, either by buying companies already in the business or starting their own. And two of the nation&#x2019 s three largest tobacco companies are here.

With their deep pockets, intimate knowledge of the market, powerful research and development capacity and massive sales and distribution networks, they are in a position to quickly seize the majority of the market for e cigarettes, said Bonnie Herzog, an analyst with Wells Fargo Securities who follows the e cigarette and tobacco industries.

She and other experts believe that the big companies will market devices that simply work better, which will win over more smokers.

Greensboro based Lorillard, the nation&#x2019 s third largest tobacco company, has been perhaps the most aggressive, snapping up an established e cigarette company called Blu in 2012 for $135 million. Lorillard now has nearly half the national market share for e cigarettes.

And the nation&#x2019 s second largest tobacco company, Reynolds American Inc., based in Winston Salem, has launched its own e cigarette subsidiary, R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. It has developed an e cigarette that, unlike nearly all its rivals, is made in the United States.

Reynolds is planning to launch its Vuse brand nationwide this summer. Its test marketing results suggest the impact will be huge. In July, it started sales in Colorado and quickly gained more than half the market in that state. And RJR Vapor Co. President Stephanie Cordisco said in an interview that a second phase of test marketing that began in Utah in late January is showing similar results.

The largest tobacco company, Richmond, Va. based Altria Group, has test marketed its own e cigarette, MarkTen, in two states and plans to go national in the second quarter of the year. Altria is the parent company of Philip Morris.

Transforming a market

The stakes are huge. Last year, Herzog forecast that by 2023, Reynolds could earn $5.2 billion in revenue from e cigarettes and $3.1 billion from traditional ones. And it, Lorillard and Altria would all see about half their revenue from traditional cigarettes vanish by 2023.

If analysts such as Herzog are right, the tobacco companies have to get involved to protect not just their profits, but perhaps their future, said Blake Brown, a professor of agriculture and resource economics at N.C. State University and an extension economist who specializes in tobacco issues.

&#x201C They can&#x2019 t afford not to do this,&#x201D he said. &#x201C If you&#x2019 re a tobacco company, you don&#x2019 t want to be the next Eastman Kodak. They didn&#x2019 t understand that they were in the image business. They thought they were in the film business.&#x201D

This shift in history doesn&#x2019 t seem lost on Big Tobacco. Lorrillard has a research and development team based in Silicon Valley. And at a Reynolds American media event in June, company President Daan Delen, tieless and in a sports jacket, roamed a stage at Pier 59 in New York, channeling the late Apple founder Steve Jobs as he unveiled Vuse. In interviews, Reynolds executives frequently use words such as &#x201C transformative&#x201D and &#x201C game changing&#x201D for their new venture.

The drop in domestic tobacco consumption, which has come at an annual rate of 3 percent to 4 percent in recent years, had already been eroding cigarette manufacturing for decades. Tobacco manufacturing employment in North Carolina is about a quarter of what it was at its peak half a century ago.

Reynolds now declines to specify where its 5,200 U.S. workers are located, but in 2012 it reported that roughly 2,100 were in the Winston Salem area. Like many other tobacco related companies, it has seen its workforce drop substantially, from about 15,000 tobacco manufacturing workers in 1987 in the Winston Salem area.

The chance to reverse that erosion isn&#x2019 t lost on Reynolds executives.

&#x201C One of the things that I communicate to my team is that if we&#x2019 re successful, we see jobs happening here,&#x201D Cordisco said. &#x201C We&#x2019 re bringing jobs back to this company, and that&#x2019 s what&#x2019 s exciting.&#x201D

She declined to give employment numbers but said that RJR Vapor Co. has created jobs in several states, some within the company, some with suppliers. In Kansas, it makes the cartridges. In its Tobaccoville manufacturing complex near Winston Salem, it does the final packaging.

For now, the number of employees working for e cigarette companies is relatively small because the industry is small, said Herzog, the analyst.

&#x201C Just to put it in perspective, retail sales (of e cigarettes) were $1.8 billion in the U.S. last year, estimated, and that compares to an $85 billion combustible cigarette market,&#x201D she said. &#x201C But I certainly expect that consumption of e cigs will pass consumption of combustible cigarettes in the next 10 years, and as that trajectory continues, absolutely you&#x2019 re going to see companies get larger and hire more employees.&#x201D

For now, most e cigarette companies, including Lorillard&#x2019 s Blu, have their devices made in China, though Blu gets its liquid from a company in Wisconsin.

Herzog believes that it&#x2019 s likely others will follow Reynolds&#x2019 path and move the manufacturing to the United States, where they can better control quality. Federal regulations, which are widely expected to come soon from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, may include standards that would push more companies to make e cigarettes in the U.S., she said.

The magic of clary sage

The potential upside to e cigarettes also may include farmers.

For much of tobacco&#x2019 s history in North Carolina, the state&#x2019 s climate and soil were natural advantages that helped them produce a product of high quality and good taste. Farmers could fend off tobacco produced in countries where the labor was cheaper, or the climate so hot year round that two crops were possible.

But one pote
ntial competitive advantage North Carolina farmers have for any e cigarette comes from good luck Avoca, a large botanical extraction company, is located in Bertie County near Edenton, not far from many of the state&#x2019 s top tobacco producing counties.

There, it mainly has been extracting a fixative from a type of sage that helps scents last longer in perfumes and things such as laundry products. Farmers are now growing thousands of acres of the purple flowered clary sage in the area.

Last fall, Richmond, Va. based Universal Leaf, the top vendor of leaf tobacco in the world, and Avoca announced a joint venture called AmeriNic that&#x2019 s already extracting nicotine from tobacco and is planning to begin commercial sales this year, company leaders said in an emailed response to questions.

The partners believe it to be the only operation in the country that extracts and purifies nicotine, an addictive stimulant in tobacco and a crucial ingredient in most e cigarette &#x201C juice.&#x201D

Farmers are watching the venture closely.

&#x201C We think there is an opportunity, and we want to be the ones to fill that need,&#x201D said Graham Boyd, executive vice president of the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina.

It&#x2019 s unclear how much tobacco e cigarette makers will need and where they will get it. In its response to questions, Universal Leaf declined to say where it plans to get its tobacco for extraction but said that its efforts to breed plants specifically for nicotine production were being done here, at least in part.

&#x201C At this time, we are evaluating various sourcing options,&#x201D the company said. &#x201C Given our long history of purchasing quality tobaccos in North Carolina, we have included farms in the state as part of our R&D effort.&#x201D

The need for nicotine

Dr. Loren Fisher, an associate professor of crop science and extension tobacco specialist at NCSU, said one advantage that North Carolina has in trying to reap some benefit from e cigarettes is its centuries of hard won knowledge about breeding and growing tobacco. He thinks it will be relatively easy to develop plants that are efficient little green factories for producing large amounts of nicotine, as opposed to the current goals of taste and the quality of the leaves.

&#x201C I think we know right now what it takes to breed plants that would produce more nicotine,&#x201D he said.

For the short term, growing tobacco for nicotine could turn out to be mainly an additional market, he said, rather than just a way to replace declining sales form the domestic market. That&#x2019 s because most of the state&#x2019 s tobacco crop is now exported and its foreign customers are feeling less effect from e cigarette competition.

For now, Troxler said, North Carolina&#x2019 s tobacco crop seems to have stabilized, mainly because of overseas demand. Chinese demand for tobacco is rising, and last summer China&#x2019 s national tobacco company opened an office in Raleigh as a base for its American tobacco buying operations.

But foreign demand may not remain steady, particularly if e cigarettes also start making strong inroads overseas.

The pace of the e cigarette revolution could be affected by the nature of federal regulations that are believed to be in the pipeline. It also could be slowed by factors such as the emergence of other new kinds of tobacco products, or accelerated by something that Big Tobacco is likely to prove good at advances in technology that make e cigarettes even more attractive to smokers, Herzog said.

It also could be slowed if e cigarettes are hit with taxes by governments desperate to make up for lost revenue from the drop in traditional cigarette sales.

Cigarettes are the largest cause of preventable deaths e cigarettes are believed to be significantly safer, but there is little research on their health effects. There is a debate among public health officials about how much to encourage smokers to switch to e cigarettes by doing things like keeping taxes on them low. Some worry that the devices, with available flavors such as custard, berry or apple pie, encourage use by children.

Brown, the NCSU tobacco economist, believes that something will bring big changes to the market, though he says it&#x2019 s still too early to say that it will be e cigarettes.

Philip Morris, he noted, recently announced that it&#x2019 s investing $680 million in a new Italian plant that would make noncombustible cigarettes, devices in which tobacco is heated just enough to give off inhalants, but not enough to burn.

&#x201C There may not be smoking in five years, but there will be something different, whether it&#x2019 s e cigarettes or noncombustibles or something, but it&#x2019 s going to be changed dramatically,&#x201D Brown said. &#x201C And to predict how it will change, and how that will affect manufacturing is difficult right now.&#x201D