Thank you. All good points but what if the only thing you can taste is “tobacco”. ie. No flavour at all. Does this come over time?
The Palate Issue
- Thread starter LiamClanNastey
- Start date
"Tasting 'tobacco'", and "no flavour at all," are not the same thing. If you're tasting tobacco, the next step is to break that down: what are you tasting? what does that mean? Is it sweet? Smokey? Sour? Vegetable taste? What is it exactly that your tasting. And not to neglect it - smell is an important part of taste as well. When you're tasting cigars or wine, you're noting the "nose" as well. What does the tobacco smell like cold? Or the cigar run under your nose? A puff before it's lit - what's the taste coming through?
If your tasting other things in your life, I don't think that it's an issue with your taste. It's just learning to taste something more complex. OR maybe learning to "complexify" your taste. That's part of the learning process.
I suggest maybe starting with other non-smoking things: your next meal. Try breaking that meal down: the smell of the meal; the taste as you "roll" it in your mouth; the taste as you swallow it - or the second after you swallowed it. I'm drinking my morning tea - more complex. How would I define that taste? In regards to food, as with pipe tobacco or wine or whatever, it's important to note that the taste evoked might not be something that you normally eat. Example: a dry Chablis tasting stone or flint.
It won't come "as the palate develops", although I'm sure there is a passive aspect as well. It will come when you've begun to reflect upon it and worked out those tastes. It's might be more - teaching the palate - or maybe even more - learning from what your palate is already giving you, that you didn't really pay much attention to before.
I would start with the food.
I would start with the food.
It also depends on what your smoking.
There are some very light blends like Early Morning Pipe that I agree taste like nothing but hot air
Also different tobacco types will generally need to be smoked differently to coax the most flavor out of them . For example young/younger Virginias will generally need to be smoked slower than most to be able to pull the nuances out of it
I have no sage advice just some observations er my experience. I’ve been smoking pipes for a few years and don’t understand my palate at all. Some blends that are supposed to be flavor bombs leave me wanting while others that some find weak are really enjoyable for me. Milder English blends like Presbyterian and EMP seem to be the sweet spot for me favor wise. Both have a wonderful smokiness and great flavor from the orientals. Epiphany is another light English that really does it for me. I love the flavor that I get from the burly and perique in Epiphany yet I’m not a big fan of many other blends that are supposed to showcase these two tobaccos.
I guess what I’m saying is pretty obvious I.e. that there seem to be massive individual differences in how people perceive the favor of different blends.
@LiamClanNastey - I hope you find some blends that give you the experience you think you are missing out on.
I guess what I’m saying is pretty obvious I.e. that there seem to be massive individual differences in how people perceive the favor of different blends.
@LiamClanNastey - I hope you find some blends that give you the experience you think you are missing out on.
I’d just like to taste something other than just tobacco and ash
Are you smoking straight VA's?I’d just like to taste something other than just tobacco and ash
It sounds like you may be smoking too fast making too much smoke. Taste in tobacco comes from the surrounding warmed tobacco releasing it's essential oils and flavonoids. The actual smoke has little to no taste. This would eliminate the ash taste, but the tobacco taste is why we all do this.
Yes, tried slow, retro, breathing tech and all those. That’s when somebody said you may not taste anything for months…
You mentioned that you taste tobacco... is that not what you were expecting?
The word "aromatic" refers to aroma or smell... and smell is where we get the majority of what we think is taste on our tongue. If you eat an orange with no sense of smell, we don't taste it, and can't tell what it is that we are eating.
So, slow down, but also try to enjoy the aromas from the pipe.
It does take time, and what we think of as slow, can always be slowed down even more. Some say that aromatics are more for the experienced pipe smoker, but I'm on the fence on that idea. I think that one just has top develop the skills, no matter what tobacco type they smoke. However, if interested, latakia blends do tend to be easier for the neophyte pipe smoker to grasp.
Going to sound like a silly question but are you sure your pipe and stem are really clean and not ghosted?
Have you tried to deep clean with the salt method?
I know that it gets suggested that pipe cleanliness may attribute to lack of taste, and maybe I am just keeping my pipes cleaner than most, but I've never found this to be the case. Maybe for someone who never uses pipecleaners or just buys old estates and doesn't clean them up before smoking... or something...
If by Tobacco taste you mean ashy and cigarette like and this is the taste you get from every blend you have tried I think the issue is most likely a combination of the tobacco not being dry enough and or smoking too fast.
If you can taste and smell food normally I don’t know what other explanation there can be.
If you can taste and smell food normally I don’t know what other explanation there can be.
Indeed. Clutching at straws here really. Not too hot and not too fast. Tobacco is dry. I can taste the difference between most French reds and whites. I can taste just about everything from saffron to anchovies. Coffee needs to have milk to get a taste but that’s the only anomaly I can think of.