Hi all. You don't know me but I feel I know many of you. I've been reading these forums for several years now, learning lots!
I've come to pipe smoking by what I think may be a slightly unusual route. I'm a gardener, and about ten years ago I began growing wild tobacco--Nicotiana Rustica--just out of curiosity. I began reading books about the plant, and learning the different ways Native American tribes cured it. I tried various methods and settled on the one said to be the most common: dried in the shade, so it stays green, and then cured. (The Native Americans seemed to have cured the dried green leaves in garlands, but I used a mason jar technique). I began smoking it in tiny "Elizabethan" clay pipes. It was harsh, medicinal, intense, drug-like, with the worst room note--like an old overflowing ash tray. But I found it pleasurable to smoke from time to time, and there were stretches when I would smoke a tiny bowl every evening... I later learned that this is very similar to the way Russians prepare rustica, and they called it, I believe, makhorka. So I used that for my username--maybe wrongly as I have never smoked actual Russian makhorka.
I kept reading about green rustica, and I kept coming across this interesting observation: most of the tribes who lived in North America loathed the "white man's tobacco" (Nicotiana tabacum) and for a long time didn't want to trade for it. The colonists in turn disliked the rustica and preferred N. tabacum. In the same way it has been said that the Russian makhorka smoker has little use for "regular" tobacco. This made me want to try smoking a "regular" pipe with "regular" tobacco, which I had never done except for a brief spell in college--way back in the early nineties.
I made the switch three years ago, or so. And believe it or not, for much of that time I have struggled to appreciate "regular" pipe tobacco. I tried all sorts of blends--sweet aromatics, English, burley blends, virginia blends, perique this and latakia that.... I read and re-read many threads here, worked on techniques, but I just wasn't "getting it." The only blends I could appreciate were dark fire blends like Jackknife plug. These blends seemed to open up and "breathe" in a way that others did not for me.
Recently though I had a breakthough. I found that if I mix just about any non-aro blend with Five Brothers, I can taste it so much better, and enjoy the smoke much more. It is almost as if the flavors in most blends are too concentrated for me. They get mixed up, muddled, and I can't taste them. But when I add five brothers it "opens" up and suddenly I can really see what's going on in a blend in a way I could not before.
In case anybody thinks I'm trying to present myself as a tough guy, smoking green rustica, then mixing five bros with everything: I smoke in small bowl cobs, and tend to smoke a little at a time, setting the pipe down a lot, going to do other things, coming back to it later, sometimes hours later. It's difficult for me to get through a bowl of anything in one sitting.
One category of blends I have yet to try are the lakelands and other strong aromatics. These are difficult to find in the U.S. at the moment. May give War Horse Green a try in the meantime.
Oh, the picture I use for my avatar is not me, but Paulus Berensohn, the potter, dancer and teacher who taught for many years in North Carolina. I never had the pleasure of meeting him but many of his ideas have been important to me.
Thanks to you all for all the information and tips you've given me! I'm looking forward to learning more.
Best,
Bill
I've come to pipe smoking by what I think may be a slightly unusual route. I'm a gardener, and about ten years ago I began growing wild tobacco--Nicotiana Rustica--just out of curiosity. I began reading books about the plant, and learning the different ways Native American tribes cured it. I tried various methods and settled on the one said to be the most common: dried in the shade, so it stays green, and then cured. (The Native Americans seemed to have cured the dried green leaves in garlands, but I used a mason jar technique). I began smoking it in tiny "Elizabethan" clay pipes. It was harsh, medicinal, intense, drug-like, with the worst room note--like an old overflowing ash tray. But I found it pleasurable to smoke from time to time, and there were stretches when I would smoke a tiny bowl every evening... I later learned that this is very similar to the way Russians prepare rustica, and they called it, I believe, makhorka. So I used that for my username--maybe wrongly as I have never smoked actual Russian makhorka.
I kept reading about green rustica, and I kept coming across this interesting observation: most of the tribes who lived in North America loathed the "white man's tobacco" (Nicotiana tabacum) and for a long time didn't want to trade for it. The colonists in turn disliked the rustica and preferred N. tabacum. In the same way it has been said that the Russian makhorka smoker has little use for "regular" tobacco. This made me want to try smoking a "regular" pipe with "regular" tobacco, which I had never done except for a brief spell in college--way back in the early nineties.
I made the switch three years ago, or so. And believe it or not, for much of that time I have struggled to appreciate "regular" pipe tobacco. I tried all sorts of blends--sweet aromatics, English, burley blends, virginia blends, perique this and latakia that.... I read and re-read many threads here, worked on techniques, but I just wasn't "getting it." The only blends I could appreciate were dark fire blends like Jackknife plug. These blends seemed to open up and "breathe" in a way that others did not for me.
Recently though I had a breakthough. I found that if I mix just about any non-aro blend with Five Brothers, I can taste it so much better, and enjoy the smoke much more. It is almost as if the flavors in most blends are too concentrated for me. They get mixed up, muddled, and I can't taste them. But when I add five brothers it "opens" up and suddenly I can really see what's going on in a blend in a way I could not before.
In case anybody thinks I'm trying to present myself as a tough guy, smoking green rustica, then mixing five bros with everything: I smoke in small bowl cobs, and tend to smoke a little at a time, setting the pipe down a lot, going to do other things, coming back to it later, sometimes hours later. It's difficult for me to get through a bowl of anything in one sitting.
One category of blends I have yet to try are the lakelands and other strong aromatics. These are difficult to find in the U.S. at the moment. May give War Horse Green a try in the meantime.
Oh, the picture I use for my avatar is not me, but Paulus Berensohn, the potter, dancer and teacher who taught for many years in North Carolina. I never had the pleasure of meeting him but many of his ideas have been important to me.
Thanks to you all for all the information and tips you've given me! I'm looking forward to learning more.
Best,
Bill
