Sehnsucht and the NYT Vincent Manil Write Up

[SBC]

No doubt what I am reflecting on now is something you've long since read. It's old news. But it's new to me and it embodies something that isn't properly called news at all -- something timeless. Something that will make this worth reading again, decades from now.

Wil S. Hylton's 2013 NYT write up,

Tobacco That's So Brooklyn but Made in Belgium (linked)

...regarding Vincent Manil's Semois leaf.

Do any of you know this Mr. Hylton? He wouldn't happen to be a member here, would he?

Well anyway, if you haven't read this, or haven't read it in awhile, I recommend it. I don't recommend it because it's informative -- most of you may know this information -- but because like all great writing it's a bit of stained glass through which something more transcendent than itself shines. It evokes sehnsucht.

Lewis defined sehnsucht as the "inconsolable longing for we know not what."

It conjures something I didn't know I'd forgotten; a world older and more wonderful than I know brushes past my soul, and a deep tranquility flows in and out and through the best eras and places and people on its way to All-Shall-Be-Well.

I suppose that we all associate pipe smoking with different images and narratives -- a grandpa, a farm, an author, a culture, a fictional world, an actor, whatever -- but, this was the first time that tobacco growing and pipe smoking were presented to me with an ambiance so strikingly like that of European wine culture. This Semois farm is put forward almost like a multi-generational vineyard nestled deeply in some nostalgia-inducing corner of Burgundy. It's lovely.

Funnily, I probably wouldn't like Semois! (I don't usually like burley.) But I'm grateful to have read this, regardless.

YMMV, but I hope that you enjoy this as much as I did.

 

[Casual]

You should try it anyway. It has its own taste and burn characteristics. There’s nothing like it.

 

[kcghost]

Yeah, there's no telling unless you try.

 

[anotherbob]

it is it's own thing. I'd say it's more like burlys weird cousin. Refined and yet rough around the edges in a way that just works beautifully. And worth trying just to contemplate how much complexity a single strain can have.

 

[mso489]

Wow, this is great. About the same time in 2013, I read a more journalistic news article in the NYT about Semois, that was equally riveting in its own way. At the time, I supposed I'd never experience this unique burley variant. The market just wouldn't bring it to me, The New York Times not withstanding.

Wrong. Fairly soon, someone on Forums had gotten a sample, and offered to send some to me, and when I raved about it, another member sent me a whole gold foil package with just a bowl or two missing. He'd hated it. Along with that, he sent a tall tin of Frog Morton Cellar, unopened. When I thanked him, he asked me how I liked the pipe. Pipe? I went back to the box and dug through the packing, and there was a lovely Ferndown bent billiard by the English carver Les Wood. Tobac-Manil Semois is still one of my favorites, a burley, but exotic and unique.

 

[SmokeClouds]

Unique tobaccos that have to be experienced to be understood. Different than any commercial blend in the US.
Personally, I am a fan.

 

[Ahi Ka]

Fan boy here too. If I could only grow one variety from here on out it’d be semois

 

[Cappy]

What a great read. Thanks for posting.

 

[didimauw]

Awesome article. Definetly makes me want to try some on my next order.