After smoking a few bowls of homegrown tobacco in a colonial-style clay churchwarden, accompanied by a pint of home-brewed beer, I feel more confident than ever that we are fully capable of enjoying our smokes without any government oversight whatsoever, should worse come to worse on the issue of regulatory overreach. While I was posting in a thread about homegrown tobacco as a response to FDA overregulation, forum member Randy (jitterbugdude) kindly offered to give me some samples of his homegrown. So far, I have smoked his Virginia cavendish and his VA / Semois blend. I expected them to be smokeable, but they both exceeded my expectations and proved to be highly enjoyable!
The Virginia cavendish is my favorite of the two. It is smooth, mellow, and very sweet with earthy undertones. The freshly-cut hay taste often associated with Virginias is there, though a bit muted compared to my prior experiences with Virginias.
The Virginia / Semois blend carries a little more of the freshly-cut hay Virginia taste, along with an earthiness that I could only describe as being somewhat akin to the taste of a good cigar. The cigar taste is not surprising considering that Randy's Semois strain is the "cigar filler" strain, though I do not know whether this tobacco has been fermented like cigar tobacco.
Both blends arrived drier than most tinned tobaccos, though not overly dry by any means. Both burned well and evenly throughout the smoke, and the VA cavendish burned without any relights.
I should note that I initially tried smoking the tobaccos in a MM mini corn cob, which I sometimes use to sample new blends, and the experience was not nearly as good as it was in my clay tavern pipe. The tobaccos burned too hot in the little cob, with little time for the smoke to cool as it traveled through the very short stem, though the taste in the cob was still pretty good after cooling down a little bit from the initial lights with a match.
Aside from enjoying the smoking experience over all, I also enjoyed the historic aspect of smoking minimally-processed tobacco in a colonial-era reproduction clay pipe. I imagine my experience was similar to that of early colonial American smokers, and I can see why their tobacco quickly caught on in Europe and became a number one cash crop. After this experience, I'm strongly interested in growing my own smoke and seeing if I can make a tobacco as enjoyable as Randy's.
The Virginia cavendish is my favorite of the two. It is smooth, mellow, and very sweet with earthy undertones. The freshly-cut hay taste often associated with Virginias is there, though a bit muted compared to my prior experiences with Virginias.
The Virginia / Semois blend carries a little more of the freshly-cut hay Virginia taste, along with an earthiness that I could only describe as being somewhat akin to the taste of a good cigar. The cigar taste is not surprising considering that Randy's Semois strain is the "cigar filler" strain, though I do not know whether this tobacco has been fermented like cigar tobacco.
Both blends arrived drier than most tinned tobaccos, though not overly dry by any means. Both burned well and evenly throughout the smoke, and the VA cavendish burned without any relights.
I should note that I initially tried smoking the tobaccos in a MM mini corn cob, which I sometimes use to sample new blends, and the experience was not nearly as good as it was in my clay tavern pipe. The tobaccos burned too hot in the little cob, with little time for the smoke to cool as it traveled through the very short stem, though the taste in the cob was still pretty good after cooling down a little bit from the initial lights with a match.
Aside from enjoying the smoking experience over all, I also enjoyed the historic aspect of smoking minimally-processed tobacco in a colonial-era reproduction clay pipe. I imagine my experience was similar to that of early colonial American smokers, and I can see why their tobacco quickly caught on in Europe and became a number one cash crop. After this experience, I'm strongly interested in growing my own smoke and seeing if I can make a tobacco as enjoyable as Randy's.
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