Did You Lose Your Taste for Aromatics Over Time?

[Skippy B. Coyote]

At this point I'm about 6 months into my second year of daily pipe smoking and have noticed an odd thing, that aromatics just don't hit my palate quite like they used to anymore. It's not that they taste any different than they ever have, they're still the same blends and taste just the same, but I have noticed that they just don't seem quite as satisfying or enjoyable to smoke as they used to.

Over the last couple seasons my weekly rotation has gone from being Cult Blood Red Moon, Mac Baren Vanilla Cream, C&D Autumn Evening, and various Lakelands to being Orlik Golden Sliced, Mac Baren HH Pure Virginia, Carter Hall, Haunted Bookshop, and Early Morning Pipe. Some of them like EMP I liked from the moment I first tried them, and Haunted Bookshop is an old favorite too, but the rest are relatively recent additions since I remember really disliking the flavors of Virginias when I first started my pipe smoking journey. Now they account for about half my smokes, and I'm enjoying them greatly.

So, I was just wondering if anyone else has had this experience over the course of their time as a pipe smoker? It seems odd to have had my tastes change so dramatically over the course of a couple years, but maybe that's just how it goes.

 

[Lumbridge]

Started out with Captain Black regular and enjoyed it for what it was. I find myself reaching for non-aros more often than aros these days. I still smoke some aromatics, but I prefer drier ones that still have some tobacco flavor - not so much the really moist ones and blends that taste like creamy vanilla air.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Other way around for me. Smoked non aromatics for decades then realized I could taste aromatics the way they smelled. Now I primarily smoke aromatics and straight orientals.

 

[RustiePyles CPG]

Like @Chasing Embers I smoked primarily non aro until I learned how to smoke and then moved to aro's and smoke mostly aro's now.

Smoke what you like, and pay no attention to the people tell you what should like.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Smoke what you like, and pay no attention to the people tell you what should like.

Bingo

 

[Kobold]

Not me. I go back and forth depending on my mood.

 

[makhorkasmoker]

I’ve never had a taste for them. I want to like aromatics. But I’ve never enjoyed them

 

[fireground_piper]

My tastes have not changed much since I started. Aromatics and Virginia based blends are what I have enjoyed since the beginning.

 

[Briarcutter]

Started off with aros, smoked Captain Black the whole time I was in the Navy. I remember one time driving back to the base on the turnpike, 1981 or so. You could buy pipe tobacco in tins at the turnpike rest stops. I purchased a tin of Capstan blue (English), Three Nuns (Scottish) and something else I forgot. Got back to the base and cracked the tins. I saw those slices and little curley cuts, the smell, I thought I found what I was always looking for. That tobacco was so cool looking, smelled sooooo good! Smoked some and as much as I wanted it to be my new favorite tobaccos, I couldnt handle it, trashed it and went back to the aros. Can you imagine a guy throwing away a tin of Scottish Nuns? I just was not ready for it yet. Then about 1985 al the aros startes tasting flat and a friend that worked at Tinder Box suggested a tin of Virginia#1, thats all it took ant never touched those aros again. Funny thing is, Scottish Three Nuns became my favorite tobacco until they messed it up. I guess for some it just takes time for the palate to adjust to some tobaccos. I guess I still smoke what some would call aros but nothing like the syrupy captian black tobaccos. Totally lost my taste for those.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I did try to smoke a few codger aromatics early on, but I was smoking Virginias very early on. I just preferred the taste of tobaccos.
It has always amused me that guys will say that they don't like aromatics because they prefer tobacco flavors, and then put down a particular aromatic because they can't taste the whatever added aromas.

I will smoke a few aromatics from time to time, but it's not something I ever really crave or even want. To me, when I think of pipesmoke, I think of tobacco flavors. Sometimes, even European Virginias don't appeal to me because of the heavy handed casings.

But, to specifically answer the question, no I didn't lose the taste for aros. I just never had a taste for them to begin with.

 

[WerewolfOfLondon]

Same. Started with aromatics and have ended up now mostly enjoying vapers. I did still enjoy the odd aromatic, but that changed after molte dolce was released to the UK market. I smoked a bowl of it and almost threw up. Haven't been able to look at anything with black cavendish ever since.

 

[sean.]

As soon as I learned there's more to pipe smoking than aromatics, I all but ditched them. One aromatic still in my rotation is Mac Baren Solent Mixture.

 

[carp rides again]

If I reach for an aeromatic I just mix it up with a bowl of something else, best of both worlds

 

[seabee1999]

Don’t think I lost a taste for aromatics as much as I have lost an interest in them. I still will smoke an aro from time to time, but now I just reach for straight VAs and Va/Pers more. There are complexities and subtleties that pique my interest in the latter blends that at the moment I’m not finding in aromatic blends.

 

[ThermionicScott]

I'm another for whom it was the other way around. Back when I got started on a pipe, aromatics were for beginners getting their toes wet with something that tasted sweet or fruity and would smell nicer around other people, and the expectation was that you'd "graduate" to English blends and then possibly Virginias after that. It's only after joining this forum that I thought to give them another try, and now I'm really enjoying some blends with obvious flavoring.

 

[kcghost]

I smoke Amphora when I starter 50 years ago. Took me a little while to get to English's and finally to Vapers. No internet back then and no one else smoked a pipe. It was a test of who was going to win.

 

[Christos D. Tsatsaronis]

No. I liked them since the first days and still do.

 

[dunnyboy]

Like many others, I smoke Captain Black (White) for many years but rarely actual aromatics. Once I began to branch out I tried and liked a couple of Lakeland blends and Sutliff Molto Dolce. I still have a tin of Molto Dolce that has been opened for a few years and one that's unopened that I might never smoke. Nowadays, I smoke mostly Virginia blends and the odd English blends but, every now and then, I'll smoke a bowl of MD in a meer when non-smoking friends are visiting.

 

[krizzose]

Aromatics make up around 15% of my rotation, and that’s been pretty consistent since I started smoking a pipe about a dozen years ago.

 

[Bright Orange Red]

I pretty much smoke equal amounts of each "family". Just depends what I'm in the mood for.