Before I go into the review, I have to say this about Mark Tinsky. He was a great, helpful guy over email. Always quick to answer and gave info and updates as the pipe was being made. If you're interested in his pipes, don't hesitate to email him, he put up with my dumb questions and was a class act all the way.
Now to the pipe. I received my Tinsky morta Christmas Pipe that I mentioned in this thread today. If you want to see pics, check out the ones in the thread as it looks pretty much like that one (and he takes better pictures than me) and I couldn't wait. I had to smoke it so I loaded it up with Carter Hall and fired it up. I gotta say, if all his pipes smoke like this one I want more.
First the good. It's beautiful. A nice gray color with an amazing graceful shape. The stem is comfortable and it hangs from the mouth like a pipe half its weight (it's 71 grams). I'm not going to say "smoked to a fine white ash with no relights" because it didn't and I've only experienced that once in my time smoking. What I will say is that it smoked cool and dry all the way to the end of the smoke.
Then the bad...there isn't any.
The taste of the morta itself was evident for the first part of the smoke (at least I think it was the morta generating the unexpected taste because it didn't taste like briar). I can't really describe it but it wasn't unpleasant, just there. I've also read that morta heats up more than briar but the walls stayed only slightly warm. The bottom is a little thinner than on most of my pipes so it got a little hotter than expected but not too hot.
Bottom line, I love this pipe and will be getting another Tinsky someday.
Now to the pipe. I received my Tinsky morta Christmas Pipe that I mentioned in this thread today. If you want to see pics, check out the ones in the thread as it looks pretty much like that one (and he takes better pictures than me) and I couldn't wait. I had to smoke it so I loaded it up with Carter Hall and fired it up. I gotta say, if all his pipes smoke like this one I want more.
First the good. It's beautiful. A nice gray color with an amazing graceful shape. The stem is comfortable and it hangs from the mouth like a pipe half its weight (it's 71 grams). I'm not going to say "smoked to a fine white ash with no relights" because it didn't and I've only experienced that once in my time smoking. What I will say is that it smoked cool and dry all the way to the end of the smoke.
Then the bad...there isn't any.
The taste of the morta itself was evident for the first part of the smoke (at least I think it was the morta generating the unexpected taste because it didn't taste like briar). I can't really describe it but it wasn't unpleasant, just there. I've also read that morta heats up more than briar but the walls stayed only slightly warm. The bottom is a little thinner than on most of my pipes so it got a little hotter than expected but not too hot.
Bottom line, I love this pipe and will be getting another Tinsky someday.
