There is a lot of bias on the boards toward aromatics in general. “Real pipe smokers smoke natural (non-topped, non-cased) tobacco.”When I was new the rationale for this was that there were plenty of flavors available in the tobacco itself, so why resort to artificial means? Made sense to me, and I studiously avoided tobacco that had been sauced. I remember getting a half-pound of Peacehaven that I gave away as it is topped and at that time in my smoking career was no good to me.
But flavor is flavor, and although I love Mr. Pease's blends, I've traded away about 4 pounds of Navigator for JackKnife Plug and haven't tried Sixpence. But I finally tried Grousemoor in the last year, and were not the flamboyant Lakelands a lesser choice for my budget than Motztek, HU, GQ and the traditional English Plugs, I probably would have bought some of them.
So I've loosened up on the matter.
To each his own, like what you smoke and smoke what you like, serves as a good introduction to this point.
But a word about the word "soap" that I read so often to describe the flavor of Lakelands, which in this sense is close to the judgment of one member about the slight "soapiness" that he has detected in Dark Flake, which he very much dislikes. More power to him, but for me I feel that being so strongly influenced to not smoke sauced tobacco has been limiting, and thus I question why a hint of any flavor should give pause to anyone who might otherwise enjoy a tobacco. He would of course reply that he despises that flavor. OK. Gotcha. Maybe I can get away with calling this aversion bias. Don't know. But in any case I hear in him the same bias that has limited me.
As for the word "soap," it strikes me as a bias thrown up by those who got a face full of scenting that they didn't know how to integrate; a boatload of taste stimulation which they threw out rather than attempted to integrate. I freely admit that the strong Lakelands are strongly scented. What I suggest is that there was a lack of willingness to at least try to bring them into the array of tobaccos they could enjoy. Lastly, a single word, that is soap, doesn't begin to describe the complex array of scents in a strongly scented Lakeland. I believe Dark Flake Scented is only topped with a single scent, and I'm sure there are others whose number of scents is few, but in any case why not say that you don't like Rose Geranium or Almond or Tonquin Bean. The word “soap,” I think, is both imprecise and used for Lakeland bashing.
Just my thoughts, folks, and if you dislike Lakelands for whatever reason, that is certainly your choice.
