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nevadablue

nevadablue

Lifer
Jun 5, 2017
1,192
4
No, not the Walmart customers...
I read about flakes and 'why' they are smoked and 'how' they are smoked and how they are 'intended' to be smoked. But, I have a question.
Didn't flakes come about because tobacco needed to be pressed into blocks for shipping purposes, in order to save space? (For example, on a sailing ship where space is precious) And, the block of tobacco needed to be 'processed' in order to be able to smoke it. So, it was sliced into flakes or slices and then smoked. Right?
History/insight/comment/opinion? :?:

 
jpmcwjr

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,748
27,348
Carmel Valley, CA
Oh, my! A man reading an unsourced monograph on the origin of flakes on the internet. So, it must be true; gospel, even!
For starters, tobacco didn't dry out on ships of hundreds of years ago; they had more moisture than Mixtures 69 and 79 combined. Compressed, much handier to stow, for sure. Sugar added- probably most tobaccos sold at retail were so processed, not just flake. And a lot more folks than sailors were smoking pipes. But it could be true.

 
nevadablue

nevadablue

Lifer
Jun 5, 2017
1,192
4
I found the words he read on the Mac Baren website.
http://mac-baren.com/history-of-flake-tobacco

 
jpmcwjr

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,748
27,348
Carmel Valley, CA
Good find. Adds credibility, but still sounds like a fertile mind with a way with words, in other words, an ad man with a morning to fill.
For Navy men and sailors: If your rope of tobacco were long enough, could you flake it down?? :)

 
madox07

madox07

Lifer
Dec 12, 2016
1,823
1,690
Hey don't be hatting on muttnchop, he might not be your most academic speaker on pipe tobacco and pipe smoking, but he has some nice videos. :lol: Flake .. it's mostly a good smoke, while the history of it makes little difference to me. It makes so little difference that I am content with Muttnchop's explanation, regardless of how little credibility it has.

 
jpmcwjr

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,748
27,348
Carmel Valley, CA
No hatin' here. A nicely done video, though I am all for heavy editing and a three minute max. Also he should have quoted his source. But no hate or even dislike. And the theory could well be true. Makes no never mind; we have flakes today and their fans.

 
madox07

madox07

Lifer
Dec 12, 2016
1,823
1,690
jpmcwjr agreed, I am all for citing the source as well. I appreciate the guy, however, he is doing what he is doing pro bono and he is doing it constantly for a while now. Some videos are a tad boring, but I am not even ashamed to say I have actually learned some practical stuff about pipe smoking from him.

 
nevadablue

nevadablue

Lifer
Jun 5, 2017
1,192
4
I watch him on occasion too.
The intent of my question was really curiosity about the current description of 'how flake was intended to be smoked'. Even the tobacco makers say how it should be done. My opinion is that the intention of making plug and flake tobacco was the preservation and space issue. The way flakes are smoked came about as serendipitous findings. The sailors didn't ask for flake, the got it as part of the smoking experience. There was no 'intent' at the beginning, just ordinary folks trying to figure out the best way to smoke the stuff. Most of them probably didn't have rectangular pipes that would hold flakes intact, so they experimented. I am glad they did. I am still doing so myself.

 
cosmicfolklore

cosmicfolklore

Lifer
Aug 9, 2013
34,000
75,783
Between the Heart of Alabama and Hot Springs NC
I appreciate the tobacconists and companies for getting us the products that we love, but I don't really care for them telling me what to do with it. Cube cut, rubbed out, or folded, whatever my mood tells me to do, and what the CEO of the tobacco company thinks i should do with it, never crosses my mind. I'm sure his suggestions are intended for newbies, but there is a line that can't be crossed where you never tell a cowboy how to ride their horse. :puffy:

 
thomasw

thomasw

Part of the Furniture Now
Dec 5, 2016
862
24
... what the CEO of the tobacco company thinks i should do with it, never crosses my mind....
Click to expand...
Reading that gave me a chuckle; thanks!
... there is a line that can't be crossed where you never tell a cowboy how to ride their horse....
Click to expand...
Amen to this. Smoke your flakes as you think best at a given time and place. Enjoy your flakes!

 
madox07

madox07

Lifer
Dec 12, 2016
1,823
1,690
Cosmic hear hear, there is not right or wrong way to smoke a pipe, so the manufacturer can keep their suggestions to themselves.

 
deathmetal

deathmetal

Lifer
Jul 21, 2015
7,714
32
As with all things in life, there is no universal right way, but some methods work better than others.
It always reminds me of this definition of "nihilism":
Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
Click to expand...
There are no universal values, and nothing can be known (i.e. we are at least one step removed from what we are perceiving) or communicated, because communication would require the people involved to share the same mind; at best, we exchange tokens.
So we can say the crowd-pleasing "there is no right way to smoke a pipe" + "smoke what you like, like what you smoke," and have half of the story quite well-covered.

 
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