I used to be a pipe smoker for many years in the last century and gave up on it for reasons I do not really understand now. During the COVID lockdown early in 2020 I could not get the thought of smoking a pipe out of my head and I started to get the utensils together. The resources in country are pretty limited so it took me a few weeks to get "ready to smoke". Since then I am back in the pipe smoking world and in a much more enthusiastic way than before. I have acquired a handful of pipes by now from different manufacturers, preferring bend models over straight ones and big bowls over smaller ones. My favorite tobaccos are English, English Crossover and Aromatics but I do not mind a straight Virginia/Perique either. Recently I started to read a lot about curing, casing, flavoring and blending tobaccos and might start exploring this a bit further.