Question of Taste

[seanleake]

Hey all,
I am a brand new pipe smoker,ive tried 5 different aromatic tobbacos, and I was curious to know: are there any tobaccos that dont leave my mouth tasting like ive licked the inside of an ashtray?

 

[sparroa]

Not to be unhelpful, but I don't know if I've ever had that experience from smoking a pipe. There is a lingering taste of smoke with every blend I've ever had, but it's not unpleasant in the sense that you've just described. With a clean pipe I usually just have an aftertaste of whatever flavour my tobacco was, natural or cased. What blends did you smoke? I've never had a tobacco I judged to be really bad, thus far - but I've been very careful about which blends I try, and there haven't been that many. I can understand some cheap generic tobaccos being acrid and ashy more easily than reputable brands. Especially aromatics. From all I've read, there's nothing like a bad aromatic to turn aspiring pipe smokers into ex pipe smokers.

 

[unclearthur]

What blends have you tried. That would go a long way toward helping you .

 

[hobie1dog]

Yes, there are many blends with an unpleasant "after-taste", suprisingly alot of them are supposed to be pleasant tasting aromatics. If you have only tried OTC ( over the counter) blends, you are in your infancy with the selection that's out there.
Welcome to the forum.

 

[collin]

Having never actually licked the inside of an ashtray I'm afraid I cannot help.
But if, like you say, it does happen to be the same taste as that which I enjoy after a bowl of one of my tobaccos,.....I may have to give it a shot! :mrgreen:

 

[collin]

All seriousness aside,....if you can give us the names of the five blends you've tried, and which ones you like and why, some members here might be able to guide you toward something you might like instead.

 

[seanleake]

Thanks for the replies everyone!
The blends that Ive tried are the Aromatic sampler from tobacco-barn.com, which includes the 5 blends: cherry vanilla, my pleasure, treasure chest, black velvet, and cambridge.
Descriptions are as follows:

Treasure chest-Light and dark Cavendish, the Tobacco Barn’s most popular light aromatic, wonderful aroma. If you like rich, mellow Cavendish, this blend will fill your pipe with a very pleasant experience - great taste that burns cool with an aroma that is classified as "AAA". This is one of our "spectator friendly" blends that has a delightful taste for the smoker. A fine blend of Golden Cavendish and Fire-Cured.

Black velvet-A wonderful fire cured, vanilla base that smokes well straight up, or to smooth out other tobacco as a mixer. This blend, is also known as Black Bart.

Cambridge-Golden Virginias, fire cured, and burley. A must try for Captain Black regular smokers.

My pleasure-A “no bite” blend of light burley and black Cavendish with a very nice burning aroma. My Pleasure is a burley mix that is lighter than our Grandfather blend, fitting more in the light aromatic color. This is our 3rd best seller.

Cherry vanilla-Cherry with two different vanilla based tobaccos.
Out of these my favorite was my pleasure, it was smooth and had a great smell, and didnt leave a strong ashy taste in my mouth afterwards. Cherry vanilla also wasnt bad.
Any suggestions?

 

[hobie1dog]

I just tried the Shortcut to Mushrooms from the "Just For Him" website and there was zero after-taste, which is something that bothers me as it does you. Overall a very pleasing blend.

 

[collin]

I'm not familiar with any of those blends, I went to TobaccoBarn.com to check them out. But I can say my exprience with aromatics from the likes of the TinderBox and the local drug store have not been very good. They seem to be very heavily cased and what some people call "goopy". I trashed several of them.
For an aromatic, I might suggest one called simply 1-Q, by Lane. It's pretty popular with several posters here.

There's another one I like very much by Peter Stokkebye called B&B, it has a vanilla flavor.
Bald Headed Teacher by 4Noggins is a very nice Aromatic/English blend.
Even a little more toward the English end of the aromatic spectrum, and not heavily "cased" would be Frog Morton on the Pond and Frog Morton on the Town.

 

[igloo]

I like the Nording line for a non goopy ARO blend , Also Sillems Black is a English ARO cross that leaves a fresh taste in the mouth . Almost everyone likes Frog Morton but I would stay away from the sub Frog blends , For me I avoid anything cherry flavored . Most of blends that you smoked were probably made by Altadis and might have a little to much PG to your liking .

 

[unclearthur]

Mc Clelland 5110 is also very flavorful. Similar to Froggie but not the same. Cheaper as well1

 

[sparroa]

I think you will be best served by staying away from the "house" tobaccos at first and that you start trying brands with a known track record. Listen to the recommendations here, followed up with your own homework on tobaccoreviews.com - skim, try to get a feel for the more popular blends. If it's universally tanked in the ratings, it's probably not worth the investment. It's not the gospel so take it all with a grain of salt, but between forums and that site I've learned a lot and I've had nothing but good experiences.

 

[python]

I would like to add that you may be smoking too fast/hot. In my experience, a lot of aromatic blends will taste bitter, nasty, and sometimes ashy if they are smoked too hot and fast.
You could also try dumping some of the ash about half way through the smoke to see if that clears up the ashy taste.

 

[cortezattic]

If you're just starting out in pipe smoking, you should not be smoking aromatics at all!

The first order of business should be to educate your palate in the tastes of various tobaccos.

Then, after about 20 or 30 years, when you know what you're doing, you can move on to the artificial flavors.

.

.

ps. Welcome to the online fraternity, and good luck pursuing the most sublime of all pleasures!

pps. I have an even lower opinion of corn cob pipes. :wink:

ppps. I won't even get into what I think of smoking an aromatic in a cob, but they deserve each other. :lol:

 

[seanleake]

Thanks for all the awesome advice everyone

Ill take all of this into account for my pursuit of the subtle art of pipe smoking.

I am curious however, I read somewhere that you can flavor tobacco using whiskey or rum, does this actually work?

 

[winton]

There are several tobaccos that are flavored this way. Really, if that is what you want your smoke to taste like, then buy a blend. Adding other flavors to a blend you have probably will not be satisfactory.
Winton

 

[unclearthur]

Peter Stokkebye Highland Whiskey is an excellent whiskey blend.

 

[seanleake]

The reason I ask is because i had a blend i bought that i didnt like at all, so i thought that I might try to flavor it instead of tossing it :?
Ill try that one though Art

 

[seanleake]

So I ordered Shortcut to Mushrooms. and it was a very nice blend. not very much aftertaste and a nice smell