Are There Tobaccos You Consider Acquired Tastes?

[carolinachurchwarden]

Or do you just not smoke anything you find to be not in alignment with your tastes in tobacco?
Case in point: I always saw good things about Haunted Bookshop. When I began my journey through a lot of the C&D blends, I threw in a 1 ounce bag of HB just to try it. Too many good reviews to pass up at least trying it. Well, the first bowl was not good. The second bowl wasn't much better. Then one day, I decided I was just going to smoke my way through it in my MM Carolina Gent, so day after day I smoked a bowl of it, sometimes two. You know, by the time I was halfway through the bag, it grew on me.
Do you ever do this, or if it's something you don't like, do you just toss it? I know I've heard before to jar it up and sit on it, maybe your tastes will change. Maybe your tastes down't really change, but maybe you grow to like it? I mean, the first beer I ever had tasted like piss too, but I love the taste of them now. Whiskey can be an acquired taste as well, but do you keep trying it until you like it? How long do you try it before you say enough is enough?

 

[alaskanpiper]

Being as new as I am, I jar everything and sit on it. I'll try it again in a few months and go from there.

 

[mso489]

Most blends take some learning. I guess there are a few that have been an immediate hit, although the immediate hits sometimes get boring, tiresome, harsh or something. Usually the ones that demand some thought and attention turn out to be more interesting and longer lasting in the rotation.

 

[carolinachurchwarden]

I find that to be true as well, Tom. I've found that my palate does change with the seasons and something that I find great this week, might be bad next. It's not that it's bad, it's just different. When do you throw in the towel on a particular blend? At what point do you have to say that it's just not for you? I mean, you could feasibly sit on a blend forever if you wait for it to be something you may like. Sure, some are instant hits and some take time to grow on you. Maybe it's the pipe you smoked it in and until you find that pipe it smokes great in, it just won't taste right to you. Maybe it has to be cold outside and it's the best thing since sliced bread, but in the summer, it's garbage. That's the thing I love about pipe smoking. There's so many things you can try with a blend to see if it's one you'll like. Then again, there's just some blends that will never hit the mark. The question is, when do you pull the trigger and say it's just not worth anymore attempts?

 

[elasmo]

For me, when I was starting out, I tried a tin of Grey Havens and didn't like it. After a while I picked it back up and found it to be fine. I think I just had to take a while to get used to burleys.

 

[hawky454]

Yes! Most of my favorite blends took a long time to grow on me. Usually blends that wow me right away get old real quick but the ones that take time to reveal all they have to give over time are the ones that really hit home for me. One in particular was 3P’s, it took a long time for it to grow on me. I tried it back in 2010 and at that time I was used to crumble cakes so at first I had no idear what to do with it, what I did smoke tasted bland and boring. Fast forward a few years and now it’s one of my all time favorite blends. Same thing happened to me with Revor Plug, Condor, FVF, SJF, Kendal Cream and a whole lot of other great tobaccos. I’m currently having my own Mac Baren renaissance, I’m really starting to love their more traditional blends, I have Mixture Scottish Blend to thank for that, that stuff is just delicious! Now I’m really enjoying their roll cakes, Navy Flake and Mixture Flake is even better than the Ready Rubbed version, it’s just to die for, it’s like butta!
MSO said it much better than I could and in fewer words. But as far as your second post, if I don’t find something interesting after 4 ounces and probably a period of a year, I know it’s something I’ll probably not put back in my rotation but with pipe smoking, never say never, in 10 years down the road that blend I didn’t like may be worth looking into again, that is if it’s even still around of course.

 

[krizzose]

I knew I didn’t like Latakia the first time I smoked it, but I finished a tin of Old Dublin and few samples of other English blends. I was quite satisfied a taste for Latakia was not something I needed to acquire

 

[hugodrax]

Not for me, sir. But then, I'm a dinosaur and, for the most part, I look for balanced blends. I don't want something where the perique plays merry hell with my tongue or there is so much latakia my throat is coated in creasote.
I know instantly whether I like a tobacco. But it doesn't mean it instantly becomes a favorite, either.

 

[warren]

Never had the time nor the interest in smoking blends I do not like. As a kid I was lucky to have a brick and mortar owner who would happily open a tin for a customer to test. A deductible cost which the customers appreciated. So, my tastes are solidly developed and catered to.

 

[hawky454]

As a kid I was lucky to have a brick and mortar owner who would happily open a tin for a customer to test

Man, I miss those days! We had a B&M not too long ago that did that... unfortunately they closed down a year or two ago.

 

[nunnster]

Latikia all the way would be an acquired taste for me. For the first few years of my pipe journey the smell of the stuff revolted me. And the first blend I tired that had some in it made me gag, and i immediately dumped the bowl. It wasn't until I had a cross over blend with just a hint of lat in it that it (that I got on a whim) that it really clicked with me. Now I love it. Still dont like Lakelands tho, but maybe that will change in time as well

 

[youdancer]

That's really one of the interesting thing about tobacco for me. I frequently end up liking blends I didn't care for at first, and growing tired of blends that once excited me.

Can't say the same for music, beer or people, for which I seldom change my first impressions.

 

[redglow]

I have some tastes that I need to reacquire. I used to be a big English smoker. Now, I find myself into vapers, Virginias and have a lot of English mixtures sitting in my cellar that I never touch.
Maybe once Fall arrives, I'll venture back "over the pond" into my English mixtures. But, right now, they just don't sound as appealing.

 

[nunnster]

Redglow, Yea I find that I enjoy different types of tobacco more during different seasons. Fall and winter are more for English/Balkan and other "darker" blends were as summer is more for brighter, sweeter blends. Spring (at least here where I am) is that magic time where everything works well. I smoke everything whenever, but the season makes a big difference in flavor

 

[redglow]

I hear you nunnster. Normally I don't mind what season it is.
I may force feed myself a bowl of Dunhill Standard Mixture later on just to see how it goes. Tough life isn't it?

 

[odobenus]

I should probably give more time to blends that don't appeal at first smoke, but I have limited cellar space and, smoking only once/day at the most, I really want that one smoke to be excellent. So I offload anything that doesn't speak to me in the first couple of bowls. I realize I could definitely be missing out on some great acquired tastes.

That being said, if I like a blend at all, I'll keep it around and sometimes find later that it's spectacular. Case in point: Exotique Mixture (thanks, Hawky!).

Also, my palate still doesn't understand VaPers, but I'm confident that it will, so I'm aging a bunch of them.

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

+ 1 for Hawky and I'm undersigning to Your comments on Mc Barens classic offerings,

 

[loneredtree]

All of them!

Isn't pipe smoking an "acquired taste"? :nana:

 

[danimalia]

Yeah, and Haunted Bookshop's cousin blend Old Joe Krantz was a perfect example. It's not that I disliked my first few bowls, but I found the flavor very plain and a bit hars overall. Even though I was (and am) primarily a non-aro smoker, I guess I wasn't used to blends that taste quite that natural and unflavored. But the more I smoked it, the more I found I craved the woody, musty and slightly sour flavors it had, not to mention its formidable strength.
As for beer, the first real non-lager/malt liquor type beer I had was a shocker. I drank plenty as a youngster, usually whatever we could swipe from parents and relatives, which was usually Budweiser, Miller, etc., and cheap 40s of Olde English. When I was about 17 or 18, I was house-sitting and the owner told me to help myself to the beer in the fridge. It was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Man, talk about flavor shock. Up until that point, I thought Heineken was, like, the pillar of beer flavor. Sierra Nevada blew my mind. I did end up loving it, but it took a few.

 

[nunnster]

Oh if we are talking about beer, then most anything I would consider "beer" an acquired taste. Trappist ales, stouts (especially imperial stouts) saiosins(French farm house beer that's funky and sour) IPAs and everything else up and down the gamut. Havent met many unseasoned persons who enjoy those out the gate. Personally I Cant stand most of the mass produced stuff, even major imports (they all taste like skunk water to me).