Hello from South Central Pennsylvania.
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Greetings, Adam! Did you know that Boswell, which makes Northwoods, is also in South Central PA, in Chambersburg?Hey all, just got accepted as a member by the staff so I can finally say hi. I’ve just begun my pipe smoking venture but have already learned so much by reading the threads here. You veteran pipe smoking wizards are lots of fun to hang out with and you help make this hobby even more enjoyable. cheers fellas!!
Did you ever try Boswell's?
I know much about JM Boswell now. I’ve been doing as much reading and research about this grand hobby as time will allow. JM Boswell, his pipes, and his blends come up often in many of my searches. I still haven’t made it to either shop yet but I will soon. So far I’ve tried Northwoods and Countryside English blends. Love them both. And I’ve tried 5 or 6 of his aromatics too. So far my favorite of those would have to be Christmas cookie. But all of them were great. Anyway it’s cool to meet you my friend. Happy smokes.
Thanks. The main connotations that I get with Chambersburg is Civil War history. And Pipe smoking kind of goes with that theme. The pictures of Boswell's lounge that I saw from the inside were old fashioned in a good sort of way.
Northwoods was really interesting for me. I got interested in it because some pipers say that it's like incense. I smelled the tin note, and it was rich, flowery, dank like a forest floor in the northern woods. Maybe chocolatey, I'm not sure.
Then when I smoked Northwoods, it was a combination of thick, maybe sweet, tobacco and soap. I mean the clean creamy soft acrid soap smell that you get when you lather your face up by your sink or in the shower. It's kind of hard to explain. I got the same smell from Ennerdale, but not as strongly. It wasn't awful, just like washing my face by a sink isn't awful. But it wasn't a great yummy smell like the tin note had. So it's kind of mysterious what was happening. It seems to have some ingredient, like an oil or herbal spice, that my brain associates with soap.
I’ve heard lots of others talk about the soap taste in some tobacco. Northwoods is definitely one of these. I personally don’t taste anything like soap but I do taste something that I can’t seem to put into words. I’ll keep trying though. Maybe one day I will be able to pin point what it is.
I think it's something shared with Ennerdale. Maybe the biochemical overlaps with one of them in soap. The taste is alittle bitter, a little acrid and sharp.
I'm guessing that it's a plant ingredient. Commonly Church incense has plant resins, like Frankincense does from the Boswellia genus tree.
However, I could imagine that some flower biochemicals could have a taste that for whatever reason remind me of soap. I don't know if it's lavender, geranium, or what. I don't think it's rose though, because rose smells like raspberry to me, and I can smell something like rose in Germain's #7.
I gave Northwoods to two other pipers in a little pipe circle and they smoked it in front of me. Without telling them that Northwoods smelled to me like soap, I asked them to describe it. They told me that it was floral/flowery, sweet, alittle chocolatey, moist, deep, great, which was how I would describe the tin note. One of them eagerly accepted my bag of it. I noticed a sweet, maybe chocolatey room note, which had that familiar soapy side, as they smoked it. When I told them it was like soap, they were surprised, and said that they had heard that too about Northwoods.
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