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Experiencing The Room Note For Yourself

I was recently watching a YouTube presenter who titled his video "The Pipe Smoker's Curse", in which he so aptly suggested that as pipe smokers we suffer the misfortune of not really getting to experience the room note of the tobacco we smoke. Oh, from time-to-time I'll get a whiff as I initially fire-up the pipe ... but it's those around us who either truly enjoy the aroma of our blend - or are adversely affected by the pungent stench. Which is why when writing a review for a blend I'll intentionally leave the room for a length of time then return, or sniff fresh coffee beans to cleanse the old nasal passages before commenting on the room note.
Last night was a perfect example.
I was smoking a bowl of Sutliff Chocolate Mousse while watching an episode of "Ripper Street" when I heard commotion in the backyard. A friendly possum who comes by nearly every evening to eat what the cat leaves behind in her bowl, was pushing the bowl across the back stoop unsuccessfully trying to get the last morsel of food from the bowl. So I went to the kitchen and got a fistful of cat food from the bag and proceeded to go outside and add the food to the dish. Naturally as I approached the bowl the possum backed away (he's friendly enough ... just cautious). But once he heard the food being poured into the bowl he moved forward and began eating. I stood a short distance away and watch him eat until he wandered off up the hill. I was probably out there a total of three or four minutes.
When I returned to the family room where I was smoking that wonderful room note of Chocolate Mousse literally flooded into my nostrils, and for a brief moment of nostalgia I was transported back in time into the kitchen of my youth where my Mother was making her old fashion fudge on the stove. Not that creamy fudge you buy in the store and shops today ... but that hard rich chocolaty fudge made with enough sugar to put a Type 2 Diabetic into a coma. If you've only had the creamy fudge and not the old fashion hard sugary confection you have to break in pieces with a hammer, you've missed out on true chocolate perfection. Walking headlong into the room note that permeated my surroundings was heavenly. And the comments of the YouTube Pipe presenter on "The Pipe Smoker's Curse" were fully realized. Sadly, room note, that one very important facet of the pipe smoking experience is lost to us as we blissfully puff away.

Comments

  • Stop feeding wild animals. You're the reason why they dig in my backyard and try to get in my garbage cans. LOL
  • Pappy...if he is feeding them, they should not need to get in your garbage😬. Digging in the yard is a different story🙂
  • @PappyJoe There is a ground hog that's living in the woods next door and he's made a hole so large I can probably stick my head into. I've been watching him waddle around and it looks like a small bear.
  • @ghostsofpompeii -- I've got one of them in the back yard. ("i've got?").


  • @ghostsofpompeii
    Are you sure it’s not a Wolverine🙂.  That would be way cool, but maybe a bit dangerous😉. Wolverines are cool👍🏻  Or maybe a badger....wait....badgers, we don’t need no stink’in badgers😬
  • Walked up on a silver back badger that lived close to the house (I discovered later) I was renting back in my mid twenties, it was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life and completely unexpected given I was living in an urban setting.
    I have a rule with critters in my yard, if they don't damage my property or my garden / food I leave them be, all others I dispatch.
    My other rule is I don't tempt them by leaving scrapes around, I've had too many neighbored ask me to help them with coons in their garages because they store dog food there.
  •      One of my buddies neighbors was feeding skunks cat food....Pretty darn stupid since rabies is somewhat common in this neck of the woods.  It is also illegal to knowingly feed the wildlife.  
         My buddy also had a black bear get into his ducks..tore the hell out of the enclosure and had himself some “Peking Duck” for dinner.  He called the game warden to get rid of the nuisance bear, they did nothing.   Funny thing, it was bear season...that bear made a nice rug,I am told, for one of his other friends.
  • My wife won't allow me to smoke in the house. So the only time I get a test of the room note is smoking in my patrol car. After getting out on a call, handling business, and getting back in its always there. Just makes me wish all the more I could smoke in the house lol
  • Some of these stories reminds me of the episode of Swamp People I watched last week. A family with a camp on the bayou called one of the Swamp People for help because the gators were hanging around the camp. When the fishermen got there, the camp owner was on the dock cleaning redfish and the blood and guts were going into the bayou. Talk about standing there ringing the dinner bell!

    Honestly, I haven't seen a raccoon or possum in my backyard for awhile. We do have a lot of wild birds and squirrels though. We also have a large hawk that occasionally likes to sit on the grandkid's play set in the mornings. 
  • @Michael308

    I sympathize/empathize with you. SWMBO has similarly banned indoor smoking. Interesting that when we were first married, living in a one bedroom apartment, there was no such prohibition.... and back then I was smoking English blends, mainly Balkan Sobranie, and a couple of VaPers. Today, I only smoke aromatics and I'm out on the rear deck.      Women.......
  • @Michael308 and @motie2 Funny thing. Our old home had a fireplace and my wife claims to have loved the aroma of a roaring fire in the fireplace. Yet she's bothered by the smoke from an aromatic tobacco. Go figure. Maybe I need to rethink things and start smoking an English Latakia blend ... that smells more like a campfire or fireplace.
  • It doesn't make any sense to me... When I'm smoking on the porch she comes out because she likes the smell of it... Yet she doesn't want the smell in the house lol. Women....
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