The Palate Issue

[OverMountain]

After a few months (probably the amount of time it took me to figure out drying, sipping, and keeping the tobacco and bowl cool) I started to taste. My early experience was puffing like a freight train, thereby sending any aromatic topping, or good tobacco taste straight up through the chimney.

 

[brown_boogie_snuff]

Hi, I'm new (sort of) to pipes and have a similar problem. Especially since I mainly vape and use nasal snuff, which produce a lot of flavor, and it's essentially as advertised. And I grew up smoking nargila (aka hookah) . I tried the breath method and really wasn't working but at one point I closed my eyes and a few puffs I felt an "ah ha!" But then was unable to replicate it. I found different tastes moving the location of the pipe, and drinking grape juice or apple juice when I was getting a little numb helped. Also blowing through the pipe and clearing a bit of ash. I'm hoping more time and it'll finally click, but perhaps consider vaping, nasal snuff or hookah. Nothing subtle about the flavor from those. If you do ever find a fix for the problem please let me know, it's really frustrating to do something that's meant to be enjoyable and it doesn't and feels like work and not getting it. And I love collecting pipes and different tobaccos, I just worry I don't like smoking. I hope in the end I will enjoy it.

 

[lukifer]

I don't have a very well defined palate in general, I do all my own cooking and like lots of really strong flavors. But in order to really enjoy the different flavors different tobaccos have to offer, I always switch things up, unless I am exploring a particular blend.

I will, for instance, smoke something like pirate cake to get a latakia fix and then smoke something completely different like briar fox(VaBur) and then go to black cavendish, etc... The constant changing of flavors helps IMHO.

However, I really like GLPease Jackknife plug(VaDFK), most often the DFK stands out the most when smoking in my normal fashion. In order to "explore" this blend, I smoked straight DFK in a small bowl before immediately after smoking a big bowl of jackknife. The result I found was that having my palate already accustomed to the DFK, the tangy redVa really popped and I could even distinguish the sweeter brightVa. Now every time I smoke Jackknife, at some point in the bowl I am able to distinguish each of the components to some degree or another as well as how they mingle together.

Sampling individual blending components (straight white burley, straight dark burley, straight perique etc) helped me figure out what each tasted like so I could pick them out later in blends.

Also worth noting, as others already have, if you smoke too hot, the flavors get really muddy and "all at once, then nothing". I have even noticed that being too overzealous in my lighting of the bowl can dramatically reduce the amount of flavor you get overall. You will get a burst up front, then not much at all. My theory(unexperienced and pseudo-scientific as it may be) is that the excess heat is releasing and mobilizing all the volatiles that comprise the flavors and give you "palate overload" and then you are basically smoking cooked dottle for the rest of the bowl.

TLDR; try smoking contrasting blends slowly or smoking individual blending components that exist within a blend you plan on smoking next.

 

[FHlight]

I don't think so.