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Acquiring a Taste
Topaz75
Professor
in Tobacco Talk
When I was a young pipe smoker (a little over 50 years ago), for awhile I regularly enjoyed a blend called London Dock. It's an unusual aromatic with a little bit of everything, including Burleys, Virginias, Orientals, and a touch of Louisiana Perique. It's topped with rum, cherry, and Vanilla flavors.
Until recently, I hadn't seen London Dock in a very long time. However, my son somehow found a tin and gave it to me for Father's Day. About a week ago I enthusiastically popped open the tin, eager to once again experience this tobacco that was such an integral part of my past.
I fired up a bowl in one of my old Petersons and my immediate response was that it was terrible. I genuinely thought it was really weird and one of the worst things I'd smoked in years. But with the frugality that comes with old age, I was not going to give up and discard a tobacco that someone had paid good money for and was kind enough to give to me.
Fast forward to today, when I'm nearing the end of the tin and can honestly say that I'm enjoying the tobacco. It seems like the more I smoked it, the better I liked it. My point is that sometimes we may dismiss a blend too quickly based on initial impressions, not giving ourselves an opportunity to develop a taste for it. Who knows? This may provide a reasonable explanation for the existence of those mental patients who regularly smoke Mixture No. 79.
Until recently, I hadn't seen London Dock in a very long time. However, my son somehow found a tin and gave it to me for Father's Day. About a week ago I enthusiastically popped open the tin, eager to once again experience this tobacco that was such an integral part of my past.
I fired up a bowl in one of my old Petersons and my immediate response was that it was terrible. I genuinely thought it was really weird and one of the worst things I'd smoked in years. But with the frugality that comes with old age, I was not going to give up and discard a tobacco that someone had paid good money for and was kind enough to give to me.
Fast forward to today, when I'm nearing the end of the tin and can honestly say that I'm enjoying the tobacco. It seems like the more I smoked it, the better I liked it. My point is that sometimes we may dismiss a blend too quickly based on initial impressions, not giving ourselves an opportunity to develop a taste for it. Who knows? This may provide a reasonable explanation for the existence of those mental patients who regularly smoke Mixture No. 79.
Comments
Hilarious......
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@jfreedy, I totally agree. Years ago, I noticed that as I smoked a particular tin, the closer I got to the bottom, the better it tasted. It's not uncommon at all for me to open a tin, and remove the lid every day or so, allowing it to decant for 2 or 3 months before I smoke the first bowl.
If you want to taste just the tobacco, my recommendation is to smoke it in a clay pipe or a meerschaum that has always been wiped clean after smoking.
The cake also sweetens the pipe, since the carbon is formed from the sugars in the tobacco. (This is one reason why many seasoned tobacco pipe smokers retain particular pipes for particular blends of tobacco, as the sugars created by a certain blend in making a cake may ‘pollute’ the flavor of a different tobacco blend – a lesson well learned by the beginner pipe smoker). The sweet cake also absorbs the ‘flavor’ of the briar (after all, we use smoking wood to flavor many of our favorite foods) and the result of smoking a pipe with a well formed cake is a mellow, sweet smoke. However, you can also have too much cake which is discussed later.The width as well as the height of the bowl, can have a definite effect, on how a blend tastes in a particular pipe. Also, the piece of briar a pipe is carved from, can influence the flavor of a particular blend. If a pipe carver takes a piece of briar, large enough to make 2 pipes from, splits it in half, and finishes out 2 pipes, one of those pipes may provide a superior smoke to the other one, or both may provide a mediocre smoke. The thing is, the pipe carver has no way of knowing by simply inspecting a block, which side will provide a superior smoke, or whether either of the two will.
If a pipe smoker has a dialed in palate, they can detect details in flavor, that they may not have been able to detect, when they first started smoking. It is not uncommon for a pipe or cigar smokers palate to take years to develop. To me, these are aspects of the hobby that make it interesting and rewarding.
I purchased a tin of Four Square Virginia. This is a light, citrusy Virginia. I tried it in a number of different pipes - all from my Virginia rotation - they don't get latakia or aros. It was pretty much a nothing blend. Then I tried it in my little Joao Ries bent dublin. Totally different tobacco - very enjoyable.
Am I going to buy another tin? Highly doubtful. Am I going to smoke the rest of the tin in that pipe? You bet your bottom collar I am.
When I first bought my Savinelli bent Dublin, I smoked aromatics in it, as those were the blends I had at the time. I wasn't impressed with the pipe, but kept it because I liked the shape. Once I bought a few flake blends, I tried them in my Savinelli, and it smoked like a champ.
I don't know the science as to why this is the case, but that's what I read on all the pipe forums I frequented. I've found that if pipe smokers repeat the same advice wherever you go, there must be a reason why. You could get an enjoyable smoke with an English blend in a Dublin, but I've never spent much time experimenting with them to see if it works.