...and by 'get' I mean understand and really taste them.
For the longest time whenever I would try a pure virginia tobacco it would taste cigarette-like, it would bite me, and though there were moments of enjoyment, I found myself reaching for English or VA-PER blends instead.
I cracked a tin of Sam Gawith's Best Brown Flake over the weekend, and had the same experience. I had only rubbed out a flake and let it sit for 20 minutes in an attempt to dry it out before I ran out of patience and stuffed it into my Peterson bulldog and designated VA-Per/VA pipe. I knew though, that the tobacco was too wet straight out of the tin so I was not overly surprised by the hot, bitey, gurgly mess that was in my pipe and that I had to dump after 1/4 of a bowl.
I left the tin open for a couple of days and the top flakes dried out quite well. Last night I tried the 'fold 'n stuff method' keeping the flake relatively intact and stuffing it into my no-name "made in greece" basket pipe and was treated with my first great Virginia smoke. It started off like normal, with just a smokey bitey smoke akin to cigarette side-stream. Once I got the burn going good and was able to slow down, however, I noticed my first hint of sweetness. It was not the sweetness I was expecting. It was not pure sugary sweetness. It tasted like I had a tiny piece of cookie dough in the back of my tongue and the flavor just kind of started to spread throughout my whole mouth. Not in a punch-you-in-the-face kind of taste that aromatics sometimes have, but in a subtle doughy sweetness. Throughout the smoke this flavor came and went, and went from cookie dough to 'nilla wafer, brown sugar, molasses, dark chocolate and everything in between. It just got stronger the slower I smoked and the further down the bowl I got. Again, it was not the type of flavor that I had been trying to taste previously, it wasn't really a "taste" but a mouth-feel and... well.. taste I suppose...
If anyone else has had trouble appreciating virginia tobacco's I'd say keep at it. Smoke the bowl all the way down to the end and smoke slooooowly. If you're smoking fast/hard enough to get billowy clouds of smoke you're not going to get the optimum flavor. Also, my $20 basket pipe "made in Greece" author shape with a cracked stem is, sadly, my most consistent and coolest/driest smoking pipe. Just goes to show, you're always learning something and having new experiences with pipe smoking.
For the longest time whenever I would try a pure virginia tobacco it would taste cigarette-like, it would bite me, and though there were moments of enjoyment, I found myself reaching for English or VA-PER blends instead.
I cracked a tin of Sam Gawith's Best Brown Flake over the weekend, and had the same experience. I had only rubbed out a flake and let it sit for 20 minutes in an attempt to dry it out before I ran out of patience and stuffed it into my Peterson bulldog and designated VA-Per/VA pipe. I knew though, that the tobacco was too wet straight out of the tin so I was not overly surprised by the hot, bitey, gurgly mess that was in my pipe and that I had to dump after 1/4 of a bowl.
I left the tin open for a couple of days and the top flakes dried out quite well. Last night I tried the 'fold 'n stuff method' keeping the flake relatively intact and stuffing it into my no-name "made in greece" basket pipe and was treated with my first great Virginia smoke. It started off like normal, with just a smokey bitey smoke akin to cigarette side-stream. Once I got the burn going good and was able to slow down, however, I noticed my first hint of sweetness. It was not the sweetness I was expecting. It was not pure sugary sweetness. It tasted like I had a tiny piece of cookie dough in the back of my tongue and the flavor just kind of started to spread throughout my whole mouth. Not in a punch-you-in-the-face kind of taste that aromatics sometimes have, but in a subtle doughy sweetness. Throughout the smoke this flavor came and went, and went from cookie dough to 'nilla wafer, brown sugar, molasses, dark chocolate and everything in between. It just got stronger the slower I smoked and the further down the bowl I got. Again, it was not the type of flavor that I had been trying to taste previously, it wasn't really a "taste" but a mouth-feel and... well.. taste I suppose...
If anyone else has had trouble appreciating virginia tobacco's I'd say keep at it. Smoke the bowl all the way down to the end and smoke slooooowly. If you're smoking fast/hard enough to get billowy clouds of smoke you're not going to get the optimum flavor. Also, my $20 basket pipe "made in Greece" author shape with a cracked stem is, sadly, my most consistent and coolest/driest smoking pipe. Just goes to show, you're always learning something and having new experiences with pipe smoking.
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