I recently was talking about the reason I like pipes as a hobby, not just as smoking them. It came to my mind this analogy and although I wrote it in a spur of the moment, it sounds very true to me…
Cigarettes are Coca Cola. They are available everywhere and for years they had similar marketing strategies to look cool and hip. Everyone knows they are just chemicals and shit, but no one really cared, until they did.
Cigars are coffee. The pinnacle among them is the habano, as the pinnacle of coffee is the espresso. That’s the purest expression of each. There are small variations: with milk, mocha, long, etc… But they are just deviations of the norm. Real coffee is black and strong. It’s a man thing.
Coffee and cigars have the peculiarity that they can be rated as good or bad; there is a standard of what a good coffee or a good cigar is, and the closer you get, the best the coffee or the cigar becomes.
Cigarillos, the mini-cigars, are Nescafe or any instant coffee. An easy cheap thing that tries to remind you of real coffee missing the point completely.
Pipe Smoking is tea in leaves. There are so many different kind of leaves and curing methods, and so many new and traditional blends, that the explorer of the leaf cannot usually rate the blends as good or bad, and thus a long subjective explanation is necessary. Not only brands: The amount of blends to try is almost endless.
Similarly to the tea lover, the pipe lover has also a thing to collect and care for the instruments we use for our leaves, and as much passion and care you can find to pipes as to tea sets.
There is also one version of tea in bags: The over the counter tobacco. We know is not the best thing, but it does the trick.
Can you think any further ideas?
Cigarettes are Coca Cola. They are available everywhere and for years they had similar marketing strategies to look cool and hip. Everyone knows they are just chemicals and shit, but no one really cared, until they did.
Cigars are coffee. The pinnacle among them is the habano, as the pinnacle of coffee is the espresso. That’s the purest expression of each. There are small variations: with milk, mocha, long, etc… But they are just deviations of the norm. Real coffee is black and strong. It’s a man thing.
Coffee and cigars have the peculiarity that they can be rated as good or bad; there is a standard of what a good coffee or a good cigar is, and the closer you get, the best the coffee or the cigar becomes.
Cigarillos, the mini-cigars, are Nescafe or any instant coffee. An easy cheap thing that tries to remind you of real coffee missing the point completely.
Pipe Smoking is tea in leaves. There are so many different kind of leaves and curing methods, and so many new and traditional blends, that the explorer of the leaf cannot usually rate the blends as good or bad, and thus a long subjective explanation is necessary. Not only brands: The amount of blends to try is almost endless.
Similarly to the tea lover, the pipe lover has also a thing to collect and care for the instruments we use for our leaves, and as much passion and care you can find to pipes as to tea sets.
There is also one version of tea in bags: The over the counter tobacco. We know is not the best thing, but it does the trick.
Can you think any further ideas?
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