New smoker having trouble tasting...

[elduderino]

I first started with CBW. After a couple bowls I went to my local B&M that has a tobacconist and he guided me wonderfully. I told him I wanted to expand from Aros. The rest is history! He walked through how to pack a pipe then tought me how to "retro-hit" a cigar term I believe. It's when you draw from the pipe then fill your mouth with smoke then you kinda snort the smoke out your nose. When done correctly you pick up many dimensions of the bacci. Hope this helps. Goodluck!

 

[tinkertank]

Most of taste is affected by smell, last month i heralded a sinus infection with complete loss of any taste for some Cult I was smoking. Loved it, then one day, it tasted like monkey butt. Next day full on brown and green snot factory, sore throat, flu symptoms, the works.

 

[retrogasm]

Also, not that you seem to be suffering from it, but tongue bite. I'm a fairly new smoker and a tongue burn/bite puts my taste buds out of commission for at least 24 hours. It doesn't matter what I smoke when this happens, the front/center part of my tongue is just numb and all I get are the very back of the mouth flavors.

 

[wfin73]

So far, I've only smoked virginia no 1 and carter hall in the new briar. I have a cheaper briar and some cobs I've been using for my experimenting.
Again, thanks for all the great info! Seems like this post has helped a few guys besides me!

 

[av8scuba]

+1 on the nostril exhale. I have somewhat of a unique situation. I lost my sense of smell several years ago due to a viral infection. I too had a 6-8 month startup period where everything tasted much the same. I got some advice here on the forum to slow down and to try exhaling through my nose. It helped immediately. I don't know if there are separate taste buds back there or what, but it works. I've found that I need stronger flavors such as English or Perique blends to get the most taste from the tobacco.
Best of luck. ::

 

[ember]

This is to funny I started smoking pipe the same as you wfin73 and I joined this forum to ask this same question

. I bought a $30 pipe all it says on it is Serrano and Italy not even sure what its made of .

Anyway I've tried a few tobaccos / some really dark stuff that a friend of mine gave me that smelled like butt and tasted even worse and a cherry blend . Now to present day I recently bought 5 different blends from Boswell and Son after hearing of their great sounding Aromatics . Here's my problem they smell fantastic in the bag but when I'm smoking them they all taste the same and I can not smell a room note at all . I bought them thinking that my wife would like the smell and let me smoke inside ( winter is right around the corner here in PA) when I got these but I'm still out on the porch and she's closing the windows now ( DANG !! ) . I have noticed that every now and then I may pick up a taste or smell but then its gone . I've tried sipping / release through the nose/ swish smoke in the mouth. UGH

 

[donatello]

I have been smoking a pipe for 1 year and only sometimes taste the tobacco, I almost always have some sort of tongue irritation, I have tried many pipes and tobaccos I am fairly discouraged but I keep trying to figure it out and reading the forums. I'm fairly sure I am getting them to hot but I try to smoke very slow and barely sip but that seems to cause many relights which I feel gets it too hot?

 

[loneredtree]

Donatello: Puffing hard when relighting and many of them will make for a too hot smoke. Wet tobacco or poor technique can cause the pipe to go out. Experience will eventually help you refine your technique. You might tell us what tobacco you are smoking. That would help us advise you. Are they aromatics like ember is trying?
Ember: Boswell's blends are very good. But, Most of us find that we do not taste Aromatics or even smell them. You might try one of the Frog series. They are a good introduction to non aromatics.
My wife is an ex nail smoker and very rarely likes any of my attempts to find a pleasant room note that would appeal to her. Is yours an ex nail user?
I am sure that there will be more help when the east coast wakes up tomorrow. :rofl:

 

[donatello]

I have tried some aromatics at the beginning but I really don't like the sticky goopiness, so I went to dunhill early morning pipe and nightcap which I did get some taste from them in the beginning but seems like after 1/2 bowl or so I don't taste them any longer but generally I think I taste latakias better than anything else. I have also spent quite a bit of time trying to smoke virginia flakes, best brown, navy flake, dunhill flake, full Virginia flake occasionally enjoying Virginias but about the same mostly all tobaccos give tounge irritation and mostly all taste the same...hot smoke feel? I have tried a lot of tobaccos hoping to find one that works for me, have tried all the packing methods I can, right now I am trying the air pocket method. I smoke one or two times a day and have never smoked one down to ash in the bottom. Lately I have been trying 9mm filter pipes. I always have many relights which I'm sure kills the tobacco taste but I really take small sips and try to go very slow I'm sure it's my technique because I have tried many tobaccos in good pipes I always do a charring light then come back with the main light

 

[retrogasm]

Yeah,it sounds like it's an issue of technique. The way you mention tongue irritation and hot smoke taste reminds me of myself in the very early stages. I'm going to throw this out there:
You can sip your way into a hot pipe with a lot of steam in the smoke that burns your tongue.
It's not just about the way you draw on the pipe, it's about the frequency and the time you have it lit, but resting. The only way to give yourself and the pipe time to rest, ie to increase the time between puff sessions, is to learn to pack the pipe properly and that takes experience.
You seem to be bouncing from one method to the next, and it's definitly good to at least try them all, but maybe there's value in picking one method that you've seen at least some good bowls with and trying to perfect that for one type of cut. Once you're getting more adept you can expand on to another tobacco type/cut.
It's a little discouraging to realize that there is no one surefire way of packing the perfect bowl, that much of that skill comes from repetition and practice. I used the standard packing methods at first to get a feel for what I was doing to the tobacco and how that effected my smoke but now I just do it my own way and getting perhaps 50% good bowls, 10% great bowls and 40% so so bowls. What's important though is that I am immproving and feeling that I taste more and more as I progress.