Not long, few years on and off
I just wanted to make sure before I went on about some things, you might of known already.
Simplicity in smoking is a great thing, but I wouldn’t confuse simplicity with having choices. Smoking for only a few years is barely scratching the surface.
Have you heard of Dr. Fred Hanna?
Read our interview with Fred Hanna, Doctor of Pipes and author of Pipe focused books such as <em>The Perfect Smoke</em>.
www.smokingpipes.com
The Myth of Brand and Maker in Pipesmoking
This is also a good article, a lot of people have a misunderstanding of what an Aromatic is.
Learn more about how aromatic pipe tobaccos are made, including the differences between casings and top notes.
www.smokingpipes.com
It’s true price doesn’t always equate to a better smoking pipe, but there are also higher priced higher quality pipes that are better. But at times a higher quality pipe can also turn out bad. So, it takes time and experience digging around. So you might think, why do I want to bother with all this, I guess you’d look at it like Hobby Exploration, just something you like doing, checking out different pipes.
Everyone’s tastes are going to be different, and just like tobacco, it takes time to develop the taste buds to sense and appreciate the complexities, especially if someone wants to smoke and enjoy good complex blends.
There are certainly pipe smokers who gravitate towards certain pipe materials, and only smoke these, but, I would never suggest doing this, especially for someone that wants to smoke complex blends, and really experience the world of pipes, until they’ve smoked a lot of different pipe materials, with a lot of different blends for quite a number of years.
If anyone thinks they have it all figured out after a few years, I’d say, just wait, and guess again. Even the most veteran of pipe smoker, will occasionally run into peculiarities from time to time. One of the simplest reasons here is that, tobacco blends can vary from year after year, the crops will change, methods and materials will change, and then it causes you to rethink that blend, and how to go about it.
I can tell you, for me personally, my higher priced pipe, with briar aged over 20 years has been the absolute most amazing pipe I’ve ever smoked. It opens the tobacco up to much greater depth and complexity.
I do have an older meerschaum, but maybe one day I will try a more expensive Altinay.
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Even after all these years, I’ve not jumped yet into the higher end meerschaums to see what they might bring, or at least some decent ranged ones.
Someone could smoke briar with only a few years age on it, and it’s a nice pipe, but if the smoker hasn’t developed their taste buds, or doesn’t smoke complex blends, then they’ll really never know, and it could simply taste good to them, for lack of experience.
Tobacco complexity is where aged briar shines. Now it doesn’t have to be an expensive pipe, simply an inexpensive estate pipe with decades on it could be nice.
For me personally, I’ve never smoked a briar pipe that only had a few years of age on it, that was as good as one with a lot of age. But someone could always luck out…
Is pipe smoking really difficult, no, it’s just something you might have to do a long time, to start developing the taste buds, obviously some people‘s taste will be better defined than others quicker. We’re not all born connoisseur wine tasters, it takes time.
I would never put anyone down for whatever they wanted to smoke out of, and whatever blend they liked, I would just make sure to steer them down the right road, which is, you need to try a lot of things in various ways for many years.
Oh, and besides the materials, specs really change things up. Bowl Height, Chamber Depth, Chamber Diameter, Outside Diameter.
I wouldn’t discount briar at all, it’s one of the great smoking materials. I can only assume, the ones you bought, the briar wasn’t that good is all.
Just remember, just like life, it changes, we change, and our mouth and personal tastes changes. So what you are smoking, doing now, you might not be doing down the road.
So unless you like eating chicken every day, then you will probably find years down the road, many more amazing tobacco blends, and eventually you’ll find amazing briar pipes too.
To be honest, anyone who loves pipe smoking, with their gained experience, learns to appreciate smoking from briar, corncob, clay and meerschaum, and we might even throw some of the more unusual in there, like Olive and Strawberry wood too, because they all offer something different. Even Corncob that some might flip their nose at, but, because how corn is more porous, not the density of briar, that breathability lends to a different smoking experience.
Give yourself time, a few years isn’t enough to start discounting any of it, and sure, you might dislike something at this moment, but you might also find, you’ll come back to that what you once didn’t like, you like now.
Tastes change all the time, and until you’ve smoked a lot of pipes and different blends, over the years developing the tastebuds, you’re not going to really know, unless you’re happy eating chicken all the time. LOL
Like I always say; I don’t eat chicken everyday! LOL
Now none of what I’ve been saying here, has anything to do with owning hundred of pipes and hundreds of blends. I’m only saying, unless your tastes are very simple, and possibly one dimensional, then owe it to yourself to sample a lot. Then, in time, you own only a few pipes, and maybe a few blends. Blends are a different story, with so much out there to try, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to try everything out there In our lifetime.
Yes I love simplicity, and I’m not a hoarder, or collector, but I’ve gone through a lot of pipes and tobacco. At present I have 3 pipes with a 4th on the way, and around 15 blends. I’ll only ever own a few pipes, but I’m always trying different tobacco blends, because there so many amazing blends out there.
Aloha & Enjoy!
