Hello fellow pipers! I've been lurking here for the past couple of weeks and finally couldn't resist the urge to join - there are so many interesting threads tempting me to reply!
As uninteresting as it may be I thought I'd introduce myself by telling you the story of my so far quite short pipe smoking career.
First of all I have no idea where my interest in pipes comes from. As far as I know none of my relatives even smokes cigarettes, much less pipes, and my parents (especially my father) are even kind of anti-smoking (pipes or otherwise). I'm not a particularly avid movie watcher and have never paid much attention to any pipes in them before, either. In fact, I can't even recall ever seeing a pipe in real life until I started smoking one myself. I'm not a smoker of cigarettes or cigars, either. Despite all that an interest in them suddenly sprung up about a year and a half ago and I decided I had to try. It took me a couple of months, but I finally bought my first pipe, a pipe that is possibly the worst thing you can buy as a newbie pipe smoker.
My first pipe, ladies and gentlemen, was an awful, small, plastic with metal bowl pipe for $3 from China (free shipping though, gotta look at the bright side of things!). The first tobacco I smoked (or rather, tried to smoke) was a shag tobacco mainly for rolling. It was awful. The tobacco was nowhere near dry enough, I packed far too tightly and I smoked way too fast in an effort to keep it lit, but still failed. I probably used half a box of matches before giving up my first bowl, repacked and wasted another half a box of matches to no avail. After failing time after time the tobacco started drying out in the pouch and as I tried varying the packing each time (though each and every time was still too tight, in hindsight) I finally got it to actually light up enough for me to smoke a whole bowl with only a few relights. Of course I still smoked way too fast with painful bite and a terrible taste from the combination of poor smoking skills and terrible pipe, but yet there was still something in it that appealed to me. Despite all the bad experiences I kept experimenting.
Fast forward a couple of months. I had gotten a better hang of the packing and smoking (though they were both still at a very newbie-like state) and happened to be visiting friends in Japan and while staying with them mentioned that I had taken up the pipe recently. They got very interested, as they had never had any contact with the phenomena at all (very much like me), and we decided to scout out a B&M. It took some effort but we finally found one and this was where my "career" finally took off for real. I bought two pipes (one was actually gifted to me by her (the friend I was staying with) grandmother, for reasons unknown but for which I am very grateful) and two real pipe tobaccos (I had only smoked the first shag I bought as well as a second shag (that's all they have here!) before). The pipe I bought was a Tsuge e-star 9 sports (I found out later), a smooth, kind of short and stubby, bent billiard with a saddle bit for about the equivalent of $40 and the one I was gifted with was a Chacom (I'm still not sure of the actual model - I can't seem to find it anywhere), a little bit longer, bent billiard with a reddish stain and shiny finish for the equivalent of $100 or so. The tobaccos were Golden Blend's Black Cherry and Tobacco Galleria's Classic Vanilla. As you can imagine the step up to a real briar pipe and proper pipe tobacco was huge and all of a sudden pipe smoking became a hundred times more enjoyable and I then knew this was going to become a long withstanding hobby for me.
Since then I have progressed quite a bit, I have smoked over a dozen baccys and own over half a dozen pipes - and I've got another six tins and two pipes being shipped to me as we speak! I've tried corn cobs (bought my first in Amsterdam - noticing a trend with me buying all pipes abroad?), clay pipes (ordered from New Zealand of all places), churchwardens (a Peterson rusticated dublin) and am keeping an eye out for a meer and a calabash (though my "pipe allowance" I'm allowing myself each month has been spent both for this and next month (in advance) already). At first I smoked only aromatics (I particularly enjoy W.Ö. Larsen's Signature (great taste and incredible room note, though it does tend to bite if I get too eager) and Ashton's Smooth Sailing (it really is smooth!)) but now I also enjoy things like SG FVF, SL and Peterson's Old Dublin and am always looking to try new kinds of blends. I guess my main focus right now is to broaden my horizons - try various kinds of pipes and various kinds of blends until I feel comfortable enough with my experience to settle down.
As I suspect many won't be bothered to read all that here's the short version: I started smoking pipes about a year ago and am still going strong.
Oh, and as I seem to have missed the actual introduction of myself: I'm 22 this year and I live in a small town (60k inhabitants) by the sea in the southern part of Sweden. There are no B&Ms here. None. I'm a developer (and head of tech dept.) at an internet marketing agency and also run my own company with a partner on my free time, mostly dealing with web development but recently also mobile application development (mainly Android).
Looks like I was in a word-pooping mood - it easily happens when smoking in the dead of night - sorry about that. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to joining this wonderful community (particularly as I have no friends who smoke pipes) and I hope we will get along!
As uninteresting as it may be I thought I'd introduce myself by telling you the story of my so far quite short pipe smoking career.
First of all I have no idea where my interest in pipes comes from. As far as I know none of my relatives even smokes cigarettes, much less pipes, and my parents (especially my father) are even kind of anti-smoking (pipes or otherwise). I'm not a particularly avid movie watcher and have never paid much attention to any pipes in them before, either. In fact, I can't even recall ever seeing a pipe in real life until I started smoking one myself. I'm not a smoker of cigarettes or cigars, either. Despite all that an interest in them suddenly sprung up about a year and a half ago and I decided I had to try. It took me a couple of months, but I finally bought my first pipe, a pipe that is possibly the worst thing you can buy as a newbie pipe smoker.
My first pipe, ladies and gentlemen, was an awful, small, plastic with metal bowl pipe for $3 from China (free shipping though, gotta look at the bright side of things!). The first tobacco I smoked (or rather, tried to smoke) was a shag tobacco mainly for rolling. It was awful. The tobacco was nowhere near dry enough, I packed far too tightly and I smoked way too fast in an effort to keep it lit, but still failed. I probably used half a box of matches before giving up my first bowl, repacked and wasted another half a box of matches to no avail. After failing time after time the tobacco started drying out in the pouch and as I tried varying the packing each time (though each and every time was still too tight, in hindsight) I finally got it to actually light up enough for me to smoke a whole bowl with only a few relights. Of course I still smoked way too fast with painful bite and a terrible taste from the combination of poor smoking skills and terrible pipe, but yet there was still something in it that appealed to me. Despite all the bad experiences I kept experimenting.
Fast forward a couple of months. I had gotten a better hang of the packing and smoking (though they were both still at a very newbie-like state) and happened to be visiting friends in Japan and while staying with them mentioned that I had taken up the pipe recently. They got very interested, as they had never had any contact with the phenomena at all (very much like me), and we decided to scout out a B&M. It took some effort but we finally found one and this was where my "career" finally took off for real. I bought two pipes (one was actually gifted to me by her (the friend I was staying with) grandmother, for reasons unknown but for which I am very grateful) and two real pipe tobaccos (I had only smoked the first shag I bought as well as a second shag (that's all they have here!) before). The pipe I bought was a Tsuge e-star 9 sports (I found out later), a smooth, kind of short and stubby, bent billiard with a saddle bit for about the equivalent of $40 and the one I was gifted with was a Chacom (I'm still not sure of the actual model - I can't seem to find it anywhere), a little bit longer, bent billiard with a reddish stain and shiny finish for the equivalent of $100 or so. The tobaccos were Golden Blend's Black Cherry and Tobacco Galleria's Classic Vanilla. As you can imagine the step up to a real briar pipe and proper pipe tobacco was huge and all of a sudden pipe smoking became a hundred times more enjoyable and I then knew this was going to become a long withstanding hobby for me.
Since then I have progressed quite a bit, I have smoked over a dozen baccys and own over half a dozen pipes - and I've got another six tins and two pipes being shipped to me as we speak! I've tried corn cobs (bought my first in Amsterdam - noticing a trend with me buying all pipes abroad?), clay pipes (ordered from New Zealand of all places), churchwardens (a Peterson rusticated dublin) and am keeping an eye out for a meer and a calabash (though my "pipe allowance" I'm allowing myself each month has been spent both for this and next month (in advance) already). At first I smoked only aromatics (I particularly enjoy W.Ö. Larsen's Signature (great taste and incredible room note, though it does tend to bite if I get too eager) and Ashton's Smooth Sailing (it really is smooth!)) but now I also enjoy things like SG FVF, SL and Peterson's Old Dublin and am always looking to try new kinds of blends. I guess my main focus right now is to broaden my horizons - try various kinds of pipes and various kinds of blends until I feel comfortable enough with my experience to settle down.
As I suspect many won't be bothered to read all that here's the short version: I started smoking pipes about a year ago and am still going strong.
Oh, and as I seem to have missed the actual introduction of myself: I'm 22 this year and I live in a small town (60k inhabitants) by the sea in the southern part of Sweden. There are no B&Ms here. None. I'm a developer (and head of tech dept.) at an internet marketing agency and also run my own company with a partner on my free time, mostly dealing with web development but recently also mobile application development (mainly Android).
Looks like I was in a word-pooping mood - it easily happens when smoking in the dead of night - sorry about that. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to joining this wonderful community (particularly as I have no friends who smoke pipes) and I hope we will get along!
