Old Info

[jpmcwjr]

After reading this thread I must be a tobacco whore.

No, a tobacco whore is never satisfied with either how much he has or which blends at any given time.... So, TAD is a given, but goes beyond that.

 

[fnord]

I do admire this systematic approach to sussing out your preferences. It's very thorough and, to your credit, you're giving these blends a chance to come alive with your "jar and wait" process.
Really well done and full props to you.
The journey is always the reward.
Fnord

 

[ophiuchus]

Way too much thought for someone like me, but I'm impressed with your methodological approach to this and I enjoy reading about it. :clap:

 

[josephcross]

I have a tendency to like everything I try, like Snoopy above. Though Nightcap and I have not gelled well together. Im hoping we can overcome our differences. This thread has been very interesting, and entertaining.

 

[Snow Hill]

Always enjoy this thread's updates.

 

[didimauw]

You guys make my head hurt with all of this thinking, and planning...

 

[tozert]

Wow you are like a pipe smoking scientist!

 

[aquadoc]

Excellent thread. Envious of your approach.

 

[youdancer]

Great thread.

I'm guessing you don't have kids.
Curious if you've revisited Burleys since your palate's been on this journey...

 

[snoopy311]

Apparently I’m still a tobacco whore. ::

 

[jpmcwjr]

Margate! What age on it? The reason I ask is my Margate, of recent vintage, is completely different; a thin shag cut.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Balkie-
Here's a pic of some Margate, not the clearest- I'll redo. This one was done to illustrate moisture levels. That bag started at two points more moisture, two-three months ago! Still way to wet to smoke well.
And I have no Levant, though on my next order.....

(The tin has nothing to do with the bag, other than to provide a nice label)

 

[hobie1dog]

Here's a pic of some Margate, not the clearest- I'll redo. This one was done to illustrate moisture levels. That bag started at two points more moisture, two-three months ago! Still way to wet to smoke well

Tell us about the moisture meters you have, where did you get them from? What level range do you keep the tobacco in?
Great thread, one of my favorites on here.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Hobie-
From Amazon, about $10, but have seen them for $5 there. They are hardly of scientific accuracy, with a +/- of about 4. With two, accuracy is way better.
I go for moisture level about 60% RH at 70º, with a range of 55-70%.

 

[hobie1dog]

Amazon has a lot of those same looking meters, so does yours have a temp probe ?

 

[lawdawg]

I like your style OP. When I first got in to smoking, I kept trying a bunch of different blends, but I got tired of opening a tin and then not liking it. Now I mostly just stick to a handful of blends that always smoke well for me, though of course I am still curious and open to trying new tobaccos.
Allow me to recommend my go-to English blend: Iwan Ries Gourmet English. Iwan Ries is a great pipe and tobacco store in Chicago I used to visit on occassion when I lived in the city. My understanding is that it is blended by McClelland for Iwan Ries. It's a very good well-balanced English. It has a good dose of latakia without it overpowering the other components. Also, another very good English / Balkan is the Peter Stokkebye bulk blend Balkan Supreme. I just picked up a good bottle of bourbon today on my lunch break, and I plan on pouring myself a good dram and packing up a bowl of Balkan Supreme as soon as I get home from work today.

 

[deathmetal]

Since aro is a very broad term, I tend to consider a blend "aro", though short of the technical term, if its predominant flavor and aroma to be purposefully different from pure tobacco itself---- such as fruity, honey, caramel, cherry, et al.

This is as good of a working definition as I have seen anywhere.
I am enjoying the systematic analysis in this thread. It does call to mind the question of what the major "families" of blends are.

 

[deathmetal]

However, I do not call Latakia an aro, even though there is resin from smoked bushes or trees on it.

I wouldn't either. Smoked leaf is in its own category, like fermented leaf (Perique). I guess that is the difference -- casing tobacco is part of the harvesting/curing/maturation/preparing process, and when all that is done, if you drown it in a top note, then it's an aro, since that displaces the tobacco flavor and makes it taste like a grape, cherry, banana, donut, nougat, penis, chocolate bar, dumpster fire, etc.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Tuna. You forgot tuna. I suspect most of us don't know what penis tastes like.

 

[Snow Hill]

I smoked some bowls of those and then free-styled it a little bit, grabbing my jar of ~15 year old McClellands Dark Navy Flake. Stuff looks just like it did when it was new, ha ha. What I did with it was use a razor to cube cut it into match-head sized pieces, and then I slowly dried it to a crisp with my heat gun, and it really tastes good and smokes easily when dried out like that!

Interesting approach with the heat gun. Thanks for the tip.