Many years ago, I acquired a well-used pipe made by a maker who used a waterglass coating. The pipe had been carefully smoked by its previous owner, whose taste in tobacco is similar to my own. When I got it, it had a fairly thin, beautifully maintained cake, and it had been meticulously cleaned. I filled it with a favourite mixture, and lit up, finding the resulting smoke to be off tasting. Interestingly, I also noticed that the shank built up moisture more rapidly than I usually experienced. Even a dozen bowls and thorough cleaning and reaming back to the walls did nothing to improve things.
To satisfy curiosity, and in the hopes of redeeming a beautiful pipe, I ended up cutting the chamber back to pristine, bare wood, not an easy task, and treated the pipe like a brand new one. The initial smokes tasted of virgin briar, and within a few bowls, the pipe was already smoking much better, with noticeably less moisture finding its way into the shank, reinforcing the hypothesis that the glass-like layer of silicate can, at least in some cases, interfere with the porosity of the briar, one characteristic of the best smoking pipes that is so highly prized. I’ve subsequently repeated the experiment with several other pipes, each time with similar results. Some people seem to get along just fine with these coatings. I, apparently, do not. Tobacco choice and taste preferences may play a role, here, but for me, for the tobaccos I prefer, for my smoking style, my tastes, leave the waterglass in the bottle, please.
