Unflavoured and tobacco-flavour nicotine pouches

Truly unflavoured nicotine pouches are rare in the UK. A pouch with no flavouring tastes faintly bitter and a little salty, and almost nobody wants that, so brands add something. The nearest you will get is a tobacco-flavour tin: 77 Vanilla Tobacco at 10.4mg, PIXX Sweet Tobacco at 10mg and Nic Nac Classic at 3mg are the main ones, and they taste of a mild, slightly sweet tobacco rather than nothing. Ex-snus users who want a snus-like character usually end up on Siberia, which is mint-led but has the dry, strong, Swedish feel.

Why so few plain pouches exist

A tobacco-free pouch is plant fibre, water, nicotine, a pH salt and flavouring. Take out the flavouring and you are left with the taste of the other four, which is a flat, mildly bitter, slightly soapy taste with the nicotine tingle on top. Snus had tobacco to give it a flavour of its own. A tobacco-free pouch has nothing, so the flavouring is doing all the work.

There is also the market. Mint sells, fruit sells, and a plain tin is hard to market and harder to make taste good. The handful that exist come from brands with a Swedish or Danish background, where "original" and "tobacco" flavours are familiar from snus.

Tobacco-flavour tins we stock

Pouch	Brand	Nicotine per pouch	Band	What it tastes like	Price
Nic Nac Classic	Nic Nac	3mg	Low	Very mild, lightly sweet, a hint of tobacco	£0.99
PIXX Sweet Tobacco	PIXX	10mg	Strong	Sweet, slightly caramel tobacco	£4.49
77 Vanilla Tobacco	77	10.4mg	Strong	Soft tobacco with vanilla	£4.29
77 Ghost Original Mini	77	20mg	X-Strong	Plain, lightly minted "original" in a mini	£4.29
Siberia All White, Slim, Super Slim, Ultra Slim	Siberia	33mg	X-Strong	Dry, snus-style, mint-led	£4.29

"Tobacco flavour" does not mean tobacco. All of these are tobacco-free. The flavouring aims for the warm, woody, slightly sweet taste that snus users remember, and in practice most of them land closer to vanilla or caramel than to a cigarette.

Tin by tin

77 Vanilla Tobacco, 10.4mg. The best tobacco-flavour pouch for most people. 77 is a Danish brand with unusual flavours (Rosemary, Black Tea, Green Tea, Salted Caramel) and Vanilla Tobacco is a soft, warm, not-too-sweet tin that tastes more like a pipe tobacco than a cigarette. It is a Strong pouch at 10.4mg, so not a starter. The 77 range also has Black Tea and Green Tea at the same strength, which are the next closest thing to a savoury, un-sweet pouch.

PIXX Sweet Tobacco, 10mg. Sweeter than 77, with a caramel edge. PIXX is a Danish brand whose other flavours are fruit and mint, and Sweet Tobacco is its odd one out. Good if you want the tobacco idea without the dryness.

Nic Nac Classic, 3mg. The only tobacco-style tin in the Low band. It is very mild, lightly sweet, and the tobacco note is faint. A sensible option for someone who dislikes mint and fruit and wants a gentle, un-fussy first pouch.

77 Ghost Original Mini, 20mg. "Original" in the 77 Ghost line is the plainest of the three Ghost flavours, with a light mint rather than a full flavour, in a 20mg mini. It is the nearest thing to unflavoured in the extra strong band, but it is extra strong, so it belongs to experienced users.

Siberia, 33mg. Siberia is not unflavoured and not tobacco-flavoured. It is a strong, dry, all-white pouch with a cold mint that is the closest tobacco-free product to Swedish strong snus in how it sits and how it hits. Ex-snus users who ask for "something plain" often mean this: a pouch that is not sweet, not fruity, and feels like what they used before. At 33mg it is X-Strong and for experienced users only. The Siberia range comes in four pouch widths at the same strength.

What to try if you want less flavour

If what you want is a pouch that does not taste of sweets, rather than one that tastes of nothing, there are better options than the tobacco tins.

• ZYN Cool Mint or Spearmint. ZYN's flavours are the most restrained of any major brand. A ZYN mint is clean and not sweet, and it fades to almost nothing within 15 minutes, which for some people is the point.
• Nordic Spirit Mint. Similar restraint, a little more cooling, 6mg to 17mg.
• Helwit. A Swedish all-white with natural, soft flavours. Helwit Mint at 7mg is barely sweet.
• 77 Black Tea and Green Tea. Savoury, un-sweet and unusual. Closer to a drink than a sweet.
• White Fox. Big mint flavour but no sweetness, in a dry pouch.

The flavour browse pages sort every tin by family. If you are coming from snus and wondering how the two compare, snus vs nicotine pouches and what's inside a nicotine pouch explain the differences in filling and taste.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• Nicotine pouch flavours: the full guide
• Snus vs nicotine pouches: what's the difference?
• What's inside a nicotine pouch?