General Onyx (White Portion) Review. (Discontinued) 13 January 2011.

NOTE:  This product has been discontinued and is no longer for sale.  You can still buy Onyx, but in Black Portion.  

Check out our full review of General Onyx (Black Portion) here!

When General Onyx was launched by Swedish Match in 2006 it was considered to be by many the Cadillac of Snus. The price is right around $5.00 a can on Northerner.com where I picked this up - but this is one of a few cases where I'd pay that or more for a can of snus. This is the top of the line when it comes to the General family. I originally reviewed it in this article in September of 2009. Recently, Swedish Match announced a big change to Onyx - the token black (no pun intended) portions would be going to white. I know, I know. White Onyx? That just doesn't sound right at all. But here it is, General Onyx White Portion. Same can, supposedly same taste, different portions. Are they? Well, we're going to find out. The can is a black can with a neat little swirl/fall pattern around the outside and the silver lid with the embossed General logo on top. So far everything is the same.

Opening the can the aroma that comes through is just like classic black portion Onyx, a citrus aroma. The portions are now white, and look and feel much like General White portion, but these seem to be a little more moist. When I fluff the portions the moisture immediately starts to soak through the portion, which I don't see as much of with General White. The portions are very comfortable and have great mouthfeel. Onyx has 11mg of nicotine, so it has a pretty decent kick. Swedish Match does a fine job with free nicotine levels, so you can feel the hit pretty quickly. The taste is just the same as black portion Onyx, which is a good thing. A graceful and gentle melding of pepper and citrus - but the citrus comes through more as a lemon taste and less as a bergamot. I like that a lot, it's much different than other classic tastes where bergamot is predominant. All in all, it's pretty much the same Onyx I reviewed last time but with a white portion. I don't know why Swedish Match changed it, but it's still as good as it was before, and still the top of the line when it comes to the General line.