I've only been smoking for a tad less than 15 years, and many blends have changed in that time. I am not like Sable, drawing on my memory from the 80's. The blends that I am disappointed in have made their changes much more recently.
Pipe Tobacco is no Good Anymore/Better Than Before
- Thread starter BriaronBoerum
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Truths are always somewhere in the middle. 50 years ago there were many fewer blends and more tobacco for blenders to choose from which also allowed blenders to age stock longer. Thus quality of the blend you purchased 50 years ago was likely better quality across the board.
Today we still have high quality tobacco but with so many blends and with the hobby going the way of Scotch and Bourbon its a rich mans game to some degree. Getting very high quality (high sugar, Syrian Latakia), etc.. So more tobaccos today are blended with great tobacco and average tobacco.
Also everything is always thought to be better in the good ole days and that is not always true, but when it comes to agriculture products I am convinced the more chemicals and pesticides used lowers quality.
Today we still have high quality tobacco but with so many blends and with the hobby going the way of Scotch and Bourbon its a rich mans game to some degree. Getting very high quality (high sugar, Syrian Latakia), etc.. So more tobaccos today are blended with great tobacco and average tobacco.
Also everything is always thought to be better in the good ole days and that is not always true, but when it comes to agriculture products I am convinced the more chemicals and pesticides used lowers quality.
That's fine. I just found it amusing you gave a reference to Doritos as it's something I can relate to (my dad spent decades working for the company, so I ate everything growing up they had. Brands came, disappeared, changed). All that really matters is if I/you like the current iteration of a brand.
Historical reviews are fine and fun to compare, but that's really all they are useful for. You like what's out now or you don't.
"historical." What about yesterday's reviews? STG changed Erinmore just within the last few years.
Everyone thought I was just being petty about the changes GH had made, but if folks would go back to reread those, it wasn't so much that they had changed, but that they were denying any change. This has happened recently also.
When I first started on this forum, the old guys were all pissed at Three Nuns, because the new stuff tasted nothing like what it used to. They had replaced the perique with Dark Fired. I of course, didn't like the new stuff, and didn't care.
Hopefully, you will be in this hobby long enough to be affected by changes also. And, eventually, you'll see some of this from our perspective.
This would be my number one reason to consider the formula change before pulling the trigger. Thoughts that the old recipe don't matter must also be tempered by the expectations of anything you have heard or read regarding the Escudo name. Subconsciously, your brain is forming opinions based on all imput received. If you start out and hear for 6 months - several years about the magic of Escudo, your tendency to overlook the fact it now tastes different may be more easily overlooked as you shop for blends.
I will tell you I bought tins of escudo by reputation early on in my cellaring BEFORE I learned of the formula change. I have 40 tins of it in my cellar that I thought were the good stuff but are merely the STG knockoff.
I laughed so hard at this, until I grew sad at the thought that they are now stewards of the few Mac B/ Sutliff blends remaining.
What's in a name? A whole bunch of preconditioning, that's what. Imagine a rose variety named Trollfart, or a new tobacco blend launched as 'Hangman's Old Chokey'...
"And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is Paul Bunyan's axe, which has been in constant use in our family for five generations. It's only had three new hafts and a new head, but yes, this is the original and genuine axe the legendary lumberjack used..."
"And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is Paul Bunyan's axe, which has been in constant use in our family for five generations. It's only had three new hafts and a new head, but yes, this is the original and genuine axe the legendary lumberjack used..."
I think we just have different outlooks and expectations on things. Unless I'm remembering incorrectly, Harris always used to say to buy a test tin today, then if you like it buy 50 tins. That thought process wouldn't exist if things never changed.
I like 2018 Jolly Old Saint Nicholas more than 2022, but I enjoyed both of them but the perique and topping in 2022 was notably different.
The latakia was changed and protocols reviewed in English chocolate somewhat recently and I had bought a test tin to see if I liked the current production as much as my cellared production. When I received a dated tin that was still pre label change (but possibly post latakia change), I waited a few more months and bought another tin until I had the production date that I new was current. Then I bought a bunch more tins after that sampling.
Next time I stock up on Blockade runner, I'll likely buy a test tin as well as I don't think I've tried anything post 2021 or 2022 production. I expect there could be changes with such a gap in production years.
I thought this stuff was all mostly normal expectations. I know people get hung up on changes but I'm surprised people get SO hung up on it. I look at it as the expectation for any product I'm about to buy and tobacco is no different.
Not my experience, but it sounds good.
Yep.
I have no doubt that high quality tobacco is being grown, but there are several important caveats:
- Fewer varieties/strains are being grown. Much of what is grown today is contracted to the cigarette industry, which tells the farmer (and sometimes provides) specific varieties to plant.
- Those high quality tobaccos in specific leaf positions, or those less common leaf varieties, are often mechanically harvested and mixed in with everything else. It's why there is such a thing as "Blended Turkish Ribbon"
Yes, there were some pretty nasty chemicals used on tobacco back in the day, but I'm not sure that what is used today will prove to be substantially better or less harmful, especially as more and more of the tobacco found in the blends we bourgeoisie pipe smokers favor is grown in third-world counties.
This was more about "new to you" blends. Harris rarely bought more than once. He would try something and go all in on a bulk buy of it.
Changes now are quite a bit different than changes, say, 10 years ago. Popular blends were made from a blending of components across several years to minimize year to year differences. They weren't single vintage blends like the Christmas Cheers. There were stable contracts between brokers and blenders, and sometimes between blenders and growers, leaving the brokers out. At that time part of the art was minimizing flavor changes through crop blending and adjusting the flavorings to attempt to further minimize taste variations.
That's gone in today's world and from what I'm reading, there are shortages of prime quality pipe tobacco leaf, so blenders are obliged to do the best they can with what they can get.
A consequence of this is that blends with famous names are being marketed with contents made of marginal components, with results that don't resemble those famous names. Again, you're in the minority in that labeling and marketing don't have a strong influence on your decisions. The opposite is largely true with the vast majority of people. That's why billions, if not trillions, are spent on marketing.
For those of us who imprinted on earlier editions, made with better components and with some level of integrity and continuity, the current climate is not as promising, to put it politely. It feels like something important has been lost.
It is what it is. When you find something that you really like, stock up on it, because the name, blend and blender, is meaningless, and you may not get that particular batch of "whatsis" ever again.
Those with experience, do you feel that Esoterica's offerings have changed much in the last 30 years? In particular, their blends with latakia?
Germain blends have always been inconsistent. That was a big part of my attraction to them. Always good, always somewhat different. The few really old bags of Esoterica Latakia blends that I've tried, like Margate, were disappointingly faded.
Makes sense, but I thought that at least until the EPA and recent regulations, growers used every chemical in the book to grow tobacco, because it gave them bigger crops. Has anyone sampled organic leaf recently, and is there any move to "go natural" like there has been in the food and drinks industries?
No and No.
There was some alleged "organic" blends available a few years ago, but they disappeared pretty quickly. In a market that is already a niche of a niche, is there enough potential sales volume to niche it up ever further?
The leaf is available (at least they claim that it's organic), but is there any pipe tobacco producer that is also going to go through the organic certification process?
Mr Badger is British. And, there's an obvious difference between Southern and Old Coot.
If that’s an honest question, many reasons. A simple one being they’ve changed what they use as frying oil a number of times over the years.
There's a new band out there called Greta Van Fleet. They sound a lot like Led Zeppelin. The kids love them. I don't. Because I know what Led Zeppelin is supposed to sound like. So I don't listen to Greta Van Fleet. But the kids can listen to them, and enjoy them, and it doesn't bother me. I know better. They don't. And in a world where you couldn't listen to Led Zeppelin any more, they would be just fine.
Anyway, I like the current version of Escudo. I'm a philistine. And that's fine with me.
Anyway, I like the current version of Escudo. I'm a philistine. And that's fine with me.
That's an honest question.
You'd think who ever was in charge would intend to keep it the same. Seeing as it's a well loved product.
A follow up question would be:
Would the expected changes increase or decrease quality?
Are Doritos better or worse because of the changes?