Good morning,
There's something that's been bothering me for a while but now I've done a couple of experiments, but want to ask you more experienced folks about it.
I have a Vauen hobby block pipe, my first home-made pipe, it came pre-drilled and with the stem in place, so all I did was to shape the outside. I have in no way touched the bowl, stem or airways.
My problem is I've suspected it kills the taste of tobacco, I've suspected for a while but this time decided to actually test with blends I've smoked more than 100g of, and believe I know their taste fairly well. Can a pipe have a quality, a factor, something about it that simply kills taste!?
I've tested this pipe side by side with the pipes I used to smoke specific genres, two Savinelli beater pipes I have for tasting blends, as well as my first ever pipe (Savinelli Toscana straight billiard) which, although has a broken shank, I keep smoking regularly as I find it really makes most blends taste great. The results are clear:
- Old Dark Fired: the Vauen gave me faint woody taste and nothing else
- HU Zulu (fairly Lat heavy, complex): faint sweet and sour oriental taste, no Latakia taste in a blend containing 58% Lat
- St Bernard flake: hot air.
All my other semi dedicated pipes (e.g., VaPer pipe for VaPers, English for English etc) gave me the blends as I know them when smoked 24 hours before or after the Vauen, I didn't smoke anything back to back. Also, I have been smoking this pipe at least once a week since early June, and been cleaning it - it's not a heavily used pipe but should consider it broken in by now. The test was done with clean pipes, but not water flushed, I don't really keep cake, I wipe the bowl well after each smoke, pass a few pipe cleaners, and let each pipe rest for a day. Also was done same time of the day (morning) so not to have a fatigued palate (though that's not a thing with me).
What gives?