I might have to get myself one of those! And they aren't very expensive especially for that three pipe set on P&C!
It's almost mandatory to have at least one clay pipe in the collection... after all, they were one of the "first" pipes smoked, harking back to the 17th. century. I've been told most of them have small bowls for a reason: Tobacco was VERY expensive back then (can you believe it: even MORE expensive than today?! LOL )... so the pipe bowl were accordingly small. Also, pipe smoking was something "exotic", reserved for the gentry and/or wealthy people.
Good advice for clay pipe smokers:
1) Never ever touch the bowl once you've fired up the tobacco... the bowl will become glowing hot in a giffy, burning your fingers!
2) Put some nail varnish (most use the red one) on the "mouthpiece" and reaching a couple of inches into the stem. Reason is that the clay tends to stick to the human lip (not really a nice sensation I can assure you). The varnish makes it a more pleasant experience to smoke the pipe.
Advantage of the clay pipes: You can smoke say a Latakia blend in the pipe, empty the bowl and fill the pipe straight afterwards with say a straight Virginia. Firstly, the clay pipe will not taste of Latakia even though you just smoked a Latakia blend, plus you won't be able to burn through the pipe by not having the pipe rest between the two pipefulls........
:
