Thoughts on Tongue Bite.

Log in

SmokingPipes.com Updates

New Cigars




PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

UrsaMinor

Lurker
Jan 30, 2023
28
44
Guys. I've seen a lot of talk about tongue bite being caused by the pH of the tobacco, or the pH of the smoker's mouth. It's nonsense. There is no tobacco acidic or alkaline enough to cause necrosis. Burley is notorious for having the worst tongue bite, and its pH is neutral. There are foods with pH more extreme than any tobacco, but they don't cause tongue bite.

Look at this article: Nicotine stomatitis | DermNet - https://dermnetnz.org/topics/nicotine-stomatitis

Smoker's keratosis is a medical condition caused by extreme heat in the mouth. According to one study, about 60% of pipe smokers have smoker's keratosis. See where I'm going with this?

Smoke is made up of tiny particles. Tongue bite is caused by extremely hot smoke particles entering your mouth. Burley most likely has worse tongue bite because it burns at a higher temperature. Charcoal filters decrease tongue bite because they filter out larger particles from the smoke; large particles have more mass and transfer more heat to your mouth resulting in a burning sensation, while the smaller particles cool quickly enough not to burn you. Churchwardens tend to help with tongue bite because they allow the smoke to cool; smoke particles are so small that their temperature changes drastically in milliseconds, and every inch of stem the smoke travels down will reduce the temperature of the smoke particles, leaving only the largest particles with enough heat to burn you.

So, that's it. Mystery solved. We can all stop reading tea leaves and consulting the stars to give us the answer to this ineffable mystery. The next time I read some garbage about pH causing tongue bite, I'm going to reach through my computer screen and strangle the idiot who wrote it.

Not advisable. Nor is the person who writes that impaired. I took the word De-mystifying out of your title.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

UrsaMinor

Lurker
Jan 30, 2023
28
44
Never had an issue with burley and tongue bite so didn’t read further. But sensitivity and necrosis seem like different kettles of fish to me.
It's a commonly reported experience, so I thought it should be addressed.

Burns from acids and alkalines are caused by the the substance denaturing proteins in your cells, resulting in necrosis. If tongue bite was caused by pH, this is the process that would have to happen. That's why I don't think tongue bite is caused by pH.
 
Last edited:

bullet08

Lifer
Nov 26, 2018
8,932
37,916
RTP, NC. USA
People report tongue bite even with dry tobacco. Tobacco that is too dry supposedly increases tongue bite.
In that case, it's not hot smoke, but an allergic reaction. Some people just can't smoke burley or red Va. It's been hashed multiple times. Hot smoke due to wet tobacco carry hot vapor along with smoke, and I'm sure oil particles also. That hit the tongue and.. Tongue bite. But we already know that.
 

UrsaMinor

Lurker
Jan 30, 2023
28
44
allergic reaction
You can't be allergic to just one type of tobacco.
Tobacco will burn hotter/cooler depending on how it was treated. I'm willing to bet these problem varieties burn at a hotter temperature, and some people just have more sensitive mouths and perhaps don't take precautions like gentle sipping or filters or longer stems.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Briar Lee

UrsaMinor

Lurker
Jan 30, 2023
28
44
Not advisable. Nor is the person who writes that impaired. I took the word De-mystifying out of your title.
"Nor is the person who writes that impaired"
That's an interesting sentence. Care to de-mystify the creative grammar you've employed, dearest mod?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Briar Lee

bullet08

Lifer
Nov 26, 2018
8,932
37,916
RTP, NC. USA
You can't be allergic to just one type of tobacco.
Tobacco will burn hotter/cooler depending on how it was treated. I'm willing to bet these problem varieties burn at a hotter temperature, and some people just have more sensitive mouths and perhaps don't take precautions like gentle sipping or filters or longer stems.
Tobacco is tobacco, but they are processed differently and therefore they have different names. I think processed might be a wrong name. It's called "curing". And other things are done to it to be burley, VA, Latakia, and so on. So the end products have their own characteristics and these can cause severe reaction on smoker's tongue. There has been number of forum members with this issue.
 

HawkeyeLinus

Lifer
Oct 16, 2020
5,580
40,856
Iowa
It's a commonly reported experience, so I thought it should be addressed.

Burns from acids and alkalines are caused by the the substance denaturing proteins in your cells, resulting in necrosis. If tongue bite was caused by pH, this is the process that would have to happen. That's why I don't think tongue bite is caused by pH.
Of course, your "article", which is just a quick hit not much of anything, just talks about smoke hitting the roof of the mouth . . . and really nothing to do with what folks experience as tongue bite.

Seeing myself out . . .
 

olkofri

Lifer
Sep 9, 2017
8,033
14,644
The Arm of Orion
Of course, your "article", which is just a quick hit not much of anything, just talks about smoke hitting the roof of the mouth . . . and really nothing to do with what folks experience as tongue bite.
Yeah. I guess the moral of that article is to avoid P-lips. :rolleyes:

Churchwardens preventing tongue burn is BS. I've scorched my mouth with churchwardens. Heck, a beginner is likely to experience bite even if he were to smoke a chibouk.
 

UrsaMinor

Lurker
Jan 30, 2023
28
44
So the end products have their own characteristics
Right, but what's the reason for believing it's an allergic reaction and not just a higher burn temp? Has anyone identified which components in the curing process people are allergic to?


Of course, your "article", which is just a quick hit not much of anything, just talks about smoke hitting the roof of the mouth . . . and really nothing to do with what folks experience as tongue bite.
It shows that pipe smokers are exposed to temperatures high enough to cause damage to their mouth. I bet if they examined the tongues of people with smoker's keratosis, they would find scar tissue.
Seeing myself out . . .
See ya, thanks for dropping by.


Churchwardens preventing tongue burn is BS. I've scorched my mouth with churchwardens.
I was careful to say that churchwardens tend to help, and that the largest particles would still contain enough heat to burn your mouth (especially if you hit it too hard -- i'm looking at you, fella)
What... what's P-lips?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Briar Lee

olkofri

Lifer
Sep 9, 2017
8,033
14,644
The Arm of Orion
what's P-lips?
A tipe of mouthpiece in which the hole is placed on the top, so that it points at your palate instead of your tongue. Yet one more contraption invented to eliminate the ubiquitous problem of tongue bite/burn. In this particular case, it only shifts the irritation from one part of the mouth to another.

Really, I believe that what many here take issue with is your blanket statement that it is one, and one sole factor, alone the cause of the sore tongue.

It is not.

The causes are as varied as the individual idiosincrasies of the bodies of the smokers. No two organisms are the same. You find smokers who have a reaction to latakia, whilst others chug along happily through pounds of the stuff.

If heat were the sole reason, why, a lot of coffee/tea drinkers would be dropping from mouth cancer by now.
 

dunnyboy

Lifer
Jul 6, 2018
2,413
29,265
New York
This is a useful contribution to the tongue-bite literature. I don't find it totally convincing—which doesn't mean it's untrue of course.

Here's why I'm skeptical:

First, I find it hard to believe that smoke particles carry enough heat over a few inches to actually induce a burn. If I make a point of forcefully sucking smoke directly onto my tongue (something I wouldn't normally do) I get no burning sensation. Certainly, nothing compared to the burn I get from eating hot melted cheese on a pizza. And unlike tobacco smoke, hot pizza doesn't produce something we would describe as tongue bite.

Second, tongue bite takes time to develop. Is it possible to get a burn from continual exposure to low-heat smoke? I guess by analogy to sun burn, the answer could be yes. But if that were true, we would all get tongue bite at the end of every smoking day—it would be unavoidable—but we don't.

Third, tongue bite feels like a chemical burn. Perhaps it's not because of alkalinity but that doesn't prove that it's from heat.
 

UrsaMinor

Lurker
Jan 30, 2023
28
44
Really, I believe that what many here take issue with is your blanket statement that it is one, and one sole factor, alone the cause of the sore tongue.
Fair enough, but I'm going to push it until it's been thoroughly refuted. So far, every issue mentioned can be explained by this one factor.

For instance:
A tipe of mouthpiece in which the hole is placed on the top, so that it points at your palate instead of your tongue. ... In this particular case, it only shifts the irritation from one part of the mouth to another.
The fact that tongue bite is focused where the smoke enters the mouth seems to indicate heat as the culprit. Heat dissipates quickly, but irritation from an allergic reaction would affect the whole mouth, as would cell damage from extreme pH.

If heat were the sole reason, why, a lot of coffee/tea drinkers would be dropping from mouth cancer by now.
Coffee is usually about 190°F, whereas tobacco burns at 1400°F. The smoke is cool enough to enter your mouth only because it had milliseconds to cool while traveling down-stem.

The causes are as varied as the individual idiosincrasies of the bodies of the smokers. No two organisms are the same. You find smokers who have a reaction to latakia, whilst others chug along happily through pounds of the stuff.
I feel like chalking this up to difference in burn temp makes more sense. Until we can identify the compounds introduced by processing can cause a reaction, or until we can prove the burning temp and sustained smoke temp are the same between blends, I think heat as a sole cause is a more likely explanation.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Briar Lee

UrsaMinor

Lurker
Jan 30, 2023
28
44
First, I find it hard to believe that smoke particles carry enough heat over a few inches to actually induce a burn.
Well, like I mentioned, tobacco burns at 1400°F, which means for a few fractions of a second the smoke particles have a temperature at or near 1400°F, and the only reason we can tolerate the smoke is because the particles cool so quickly during their trip through the pipe stem.

Certainly, nothing compared to the burn I get from eating hot melted cheese on a pizza. And unlike tobacco smoke, hot pizza doesn't produce something we would describe as tongue bite.
The cheese pizza would cause a burn over a large area, whereas smoke particles cause tiny interspersed burns. The "tongue bite" from pizza is just one massive burn, and I'd say you'd definitely get tongue bite from a pizza fresh from the oven.

Second, tongue bite takes time to develop. Is it possible to get a burn from continual exposure to low-heat smoke?
I'd say that the more your tongue gets peppered by hot smoke particles, the a bigger collective surface area of your tongue is damaged. A few tiny burns won't feel like much, but when they accumulate your tongue starts getting sore.

Third, tongue bite feels like a chemical burn. Perhaps it's not because of alkalinity but that doesn't prove that it's from heat.
That's true. Heat just seems like the most likely explanation, and until some other magic heretofore unknown to me is revealed, it's the explanation I'm going to assume is true.