Happy to have found this place, I have been lurking here for several weeks and decided I wanted an account. These kinds of boards are great and I'm sure they are only seeing a tiny fraction of all the new smokers they have helped.
I always hated cigarettes with a passion, although I really did enjoy the occasional cigar. Sometimes I just wanted to relax and have a cigar, and honestly, they usually overpowered me, even as I started gravitating towards smaller and smaller ones. I would get maybe a third of the way in, was enjoying it, but at some point I was just DONE, although I wasn't done RELAXING hah. I found myself lamenting that half the cigar was usually wasted, especially since they are so expensive! Sometimes I kind of felt like maybe I was at the mercy of the cigar's self contained, pre-packaged experience more than that I was enjoying something the way that I wanted.
Then I started to think about pipe smoking. My grandfather smoked a pipe and of course I knew it was very popular historically. Most pipe smoking that I had ever been around wasn't offensive, almost like a mild incense, vs cigars that will make people run for the doors. I always thought maybe it was too fiddly with the kit and such, figured there was probably a good reason why it lost popularity so fast. But the whole thing seemed to be so chill, and check so many of the boxes I was looking for, so I grabbed a pear pipe, a few drugstore brands and gave it a try.
At first it was exactly as fiddly as I was expecting, burned my tongue immediately, of course. I made stupid mistake of going for a cherry soaked blend and it was super difficult to work with. Ashy taste and hot bowl. Barely a hint of the smell out of the pouch. Bleah! This is awful! Screw this!
But then, I started thinking... Come on now, this can't possibly be that experience that countless people have relished so enthusiastically over the centuries. Just not possible. And after all, I'm the one in control of everything here, like, it wasn't decided for me by a Nicaraguan cigar roller. So I gave it another try, avoided the fruity stuff and tried a more "basic" type of blend. Decided instead to just embrace the fiddly-ness and use a light hand. After some trial and error, the kind of thing that you only learn by experience no matter how much you read, the flavour started to come though. Then I had that.... "AHHH I get it!" moment.
And now here I am, of course, new smoker in that mode where I want to try different blends. Happy to be here. Please feel free to leave recommendations!
I always hated cigarettes with a passion, although I really did enjoy the occasional cigar. Sometimes I just wanted to relax and have a cigar, and honestly, they usually overpowered me, even as I started gravitating towards smaller and smaller ones. I would get maybe a third of the way in, was enjoying it, but at some point I was just DONE, although I wasn't done RELAXING hah. I found myself lamenting that half the cigar was usually wasted, especially since they are so expensive! Sometimes I kind of felt like maybe I was at the mercy of the cigar's self contained, pre-packaged experience more than that I was enjoying something the way that I wanted.
Then I started to think about pipe smoking. My grandfather smoked a pipe and of course I knew it was very popular historically. Most pipe smoking that I had ever been around wasn't offensive, almost like a mild incense, vs cigars that will make people run for the doors. I always thought maybe it was too fiddly with the kit and such, figured there was probably a good reason why it lost popularity so fast. But the whole thing seemed to be so chill, and check so many of the boxes I was looking for, so I grabbed a pear pipe, a few drugstore brands and gave it a try.
At first it was exactly as fiddly as I was expecting, burned my tongue immediately, of course. I made stupid mistake of going for a cherry soaked blend and it was super difficult to work with. Ashy taste and hot bowl. Barely a hint of the smell out of the pouch. Bleah! This is awful! Screw this!
But then, I started thinking... Come on now, this can't possibly be that experience that countless people have relished so enthusiastically over the centuries. Just not possible. And after all, I'm the one in control of everything here, like, it wasn't decided for me by a Nicaraguan cigar roller. So I gave it another try, avoided the fruity stuff and tried a more "basic" type of blend. Decided instead to just embrace the fiddly-ness and use a light hand. After some trial and error, the kind of thing that you only learn by experience no matter how much you read, the flavour started to come though. Then I had that.... "AHHH I get it!" moment.
And now here I am, of course, new smoker in that mode where I want to try different blends. Happy to be here. Please feel free to leave recommendations!
