Pipe Tobacco Language

[Henry_L]

When you shop for pipe tobacco (I'm talking non flavored tobacco) you'll encounter descriptions "suggestions or hints of spice, caramel, chocolate, citrus, toast . . . etc " although the product is nothing beyond tobacco with no such additives. This kind of association is even stronger with cigars and is quite common with tea and wine enthusiasts.

Anyone wonder where / how this got started? More to it than just marketing I suspect.

 

[mso489]

Descriptions of flavors in tobacco blends and wine are often just an extravagant sales pitch, romance literature as the ad people put it. But wait, don't dismiss it. When jiminks, our tobacco reviewing guru, picks out eight or ten flavors in a blend, he's not trying to sell the tobacco in particular. And good wine reviewers do the same thing. This is the result of an advanced cultivated taste which strives to be sensitive to the nuances of flavors that aren't related to the ingredients in the tobacco blend or the wine. If you think someone is just blowing smoke, I understand. But also, if you find dependable reviewers and pay attention to their descriptions, you may end up having a better experience with the product reviewed. Because someone sounds as if they know what they're talking about doesn't always mean they don't.

 

[Chasing Embers]

(I'm talking non flavored tobacco)

Considering nearly all production tobacco is cased, there's no such thing unless you're growing it yourself.

"suggestions or hints of spice, caramel, chocolate, citrus, toast . . . etc "

Anyone wonder where / how this got started?

Because that's what some tobaccos taste like.

Spice can be Orientals or Perique. Some high sugar stains of Virginias can have a caramel note when smoked. Burleys often have a nutty cocoa flavor. The lighter Virginias can have hay and citrus flavors. Periques bread, plum, and sometimes green pepper.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I’ve grown and flue cured some bright leaf with a lemony tastes, cherry red varietals that flue cure with hints of cherry, Japan8 has a natural licorice spice flavor, and various burleys with nutty tastes to earthy chocolate notes.
In wine tasting, teas, coffees, cigars, pipe tobaccos the only ways we have to convey differences in subtle flavors is to dissect the flavors and relate them in way a layman can understand. I mean if we said things like, tastes like arabica but more of a malic acid taste, most people wouldn’t know what that means. So we say citrusy with hints of apple.

Now, it took me a few years of patiently smoking slow, keeping a journal of tasting notes, and comparing one tobacco to another, same tobaccos in different pipes, different ages and different levels of humidity to really get the hang of tasting.

Also, how frequently you smoke matters to your ability to taste. If you only smoke once a week and have moderate to poor taste and olfactory memories, it might take you decades. In that case, I’d recommend smoking two pipes with different tobaccos together. Compare one to the other. Make mental notes. That might help one learn to at least differentiate flavors.
But, it depends also on how much you want to learn to taste. How passionate are you to learn.

But, there’s also some value in not. I mean, if you can’t taste the tea flavors in a stoved yellow Virginia, why not just smoke the cheapest tobaccos you can find?
But, we are all in this for different reason. So, YMMV

 

[jvnshr]

although the product is nothing beyond tobacco with no such additives.

First of all, most of the tobacco products we are consuming have additives.
A tobacco leaf may have a flavor of citrus, that doesn't mean that leaf was sprayed/cased/topped with some lemon juice. Our receptors analyze the chemical compounds, molecules from the smoke and send the results to our brain and our brain matches the flavors if there is a history in the archive. Think about a strawberry shake, which has artificial flavoring. Someone mixed some chemicals and came up with a flavor which is similar to the original strawberry flavor. Tobacco leaf may also have some flavors which are similar to the flavors that we find in our food. However, in order to have a consistent product one can't rely on a plant. Thus, the additives are being used.

 

[renfield]

We (most of us here) smoke for the flavor. It’s only natural to frame our descriptions in terms of foods and flavor notes. Topped/cased/flavored or not.

 

[kcghost]

It would be a little difficult to describe the taste of something without referring to things you usually eat.

 

[Jaylotw]

I get where you're coming from. My favorite tasting note was always "nuances of toast and maraschino cherry skins." It just sounded like BS to me, until I really started to key in to certain flavors like the grassy/citrus notes of certain VAs, and then from there it was like "this one is more orange-like than lemon, more dried hay than grass." From there the terms people use to describe flavors in blends started to make more sense to me.

It's not like the smoke actually tastes just like those flavors, but that those familiar flavors are the closest approximation to what is tasted.

Sometimes, you taste subtle flavors because...those flavors were added in the casing or top note. So if you taste a citrus flavor, the casing may contain some citrus. Taste caramel? They probably cased with sugar.

You also don't have to worry about it to enjoy the smoking experience.

 

[wyfbane]

Descriptions of flavors in tobacco blends and wine are often just an extravagant sales pitch, romance literature as the ad people put it. But wait, don't dismiss it. When jiminks, our tobacco reviewing guru, picks out eight or ten flavors in a blend, he's not trying to sell the tobacco in particular. And good wine reviewers do the same thing. This is the result of an advanced cultivated taste which strives to be sensitive to the nuances of flavors that aren't related to the ingredients in the tobacco blend or the wine. If you think someone is just blowing smoke, I understand. But also, if you find dependable reviewers and pay attention to their descriptions, you may end up having a better experience with the product reviewed. Because someone sounds as if they know what they're talking about doesn't always mean they don't.

With regards to wine, I was having a conversation with a guy about either sommeliers or reviewers or something, and he said that they will go taste EVERYTHING to see how it may relate later to wines. Shoe leather, garden hoses, tar, EVERYTHING. So it isn't a sales pitch. They are just more enthusiastic hobbyists than most of us.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Yeh, when you hear citrus, don’t think Jolly Rancher, think seltzer water. And, I hate seltzer water, but it’s just a metaphor. Maybe herbal tea would have been better.

 

[bullet08]

Don't think too much. As long as you know which blend you like, that's a starting point. Sooner or later, certain note will pop up. It's a nice little surprise.

 

[warren]

It would be a little difficult to describe the taste of something without referring to things you usually eat.

I wondered why some here say a blend tastes like dog crap or rubber gloves. It's fascinating to read here what some of our members dine on.

 

[jpmcwjr]

What, Me Worry?

Even if a blend is said to be, say, a strong citrus forward Virginia, most the time I just taste smoke....and hopefully an actual VA tobacco.

 

[sablebrush52]

I wondered why some here say a blend tastes like dog crap or rubber gloves. It's fascinating to read here what some of our members dine on.

Or smell.

 

[karam]

There is a famous experiment repeated many times in many countries were wine connoisseurs were served glasses of white and red wine and asked to describe them. They all gave predictable white and red wine descriptions, only to be revealed that they tasted the exact same white wine where red colouring had been added to half of the glasses. Guess there were some red faces too

Seen it done live too, in the UK by one of Heston Blumenthal’s collaborators. The funny thing is that time he asked the audience for volunteers claiming to know wine, as well as people who do not, the second group said they tasted the same, suggestion is a powerful thing!

On topic, like 99% of us here I am not Jim so not even trying to figure out all the tastes, however things like wood, smoke, hay, pepper, spice, cumin, leather, sweet, cocoa, cinnamon do come across, as well as mouthfeel so I am happy with that.

 

[ClenchedBilliard]

I wouldn’t get too worked up about not noticing flavor nuance comparisons. Just continue to smoke and they will make themselves known over time. For instance, it takes me a week or two of smoking nothing but perique heavy blends for me to really get all the flavors of mushroom, green pepper, roux, etc dialed into my senses. I’m the same way with bourbon as well. Some flavors are a lot easier to pick out, such as earth or leather. But then ymmv.

 

[Grangerous]

Some cannot get burley nuttiness.

Some cannot get the baked bread or the citrus inherent to Virginia.

Most can get the smokiness of Latakia or the Tanginess of Perique.

The lucky among us can discern it all.

I think most will, after a time, favor a particular genre and stay with that. —I’m a burley fan, but enjoy VaBur blends as well. I’m not fond of Latakia and I can do without Perique. I’m very sensitive to overly artificial flavors and I shun aromatics.

Some seek very strong blends while others are not so much interested in nicotine.

But it’s safe to say that different tobacco leaf does possess different flavors just as apples, pears, plums etc are all tree fruit, they do not taste the same. Yet, try to describe the differences in flavor with words — good luck with that!

@jiminks does a marvelous job.

 

[Stompthroat]

If you can't stand the descriptions, Just go to Canada, I think their laws forbid using descriptions of tobacco. At least on their websites.

 

[mso489]

Ok, I have to try this. I'm smoking PS Luxury Bullseye Coin. So what do I taste along side the tobacco? Hmmm. I get distant black tea. A slight scent of something that tastes the way limestone smells. And a trace of raw cabbage? And a bit of wheat flakes? I'm not jiving you. I'm just leaning back and closing my eyes and trying to detect flavors other than the base Virginia, or from the Virginia. Give it a try. I'm not insisting on any of this, just trying to draw out associations from what I'm tasting and probably smelling. What are you smoking and what are you tasting besides or within the tobacco?

 

[renfield]

It would be a little difficult to describe the taste of something without referring to things you usually eat.

A Virginia base with undertones of blue and continental drift.