Tobacco type vs pipe type, a beginner question

[TheZaxx]

Is there a consensus somewhere on which types of pipes smoke certain tobaccos best?

I’m not talking about individual tins, but more a broader sense, an “everyone agrees bend billiards are the way to go with va/pers, while church wardens can’t be beat for aromatics” type deal. If it exists.

 

[Servant King]

As with many sub-topics under the umbrella of pipe smoking, you're setting yourself up to get a hundred different answers.

I'm of the mindset that ample dry time, light packing, and slow smoking speed will do far greater wonders than most any other factors.

That said, I have found that the Dublin shape burns too hot for my liking. Due to the small amount of wood down there are the bottom, that makes sense.

I tend to gravitate toward a wider chamber for anything with more than a trace amount of burley in it. My Savinelli Porto Cervo 122 rusticated pot is my go to. I also like small chambers for VAs and Englishes. For the former, I find it prudent for moisture control. For the latter, it's to keep the smoke short, because it's typically wintertime, and I'm therefore freezing my ass off!

Just my three cents (inflation adjusted)...

 

[Waning Embers]

Is there a consensus

Not on a single thing regarding pipe smoking.

 

[warren]

The pipe is a personal experience. You can pretty much do what gives you a good smoking experience. Some like much ritual and complication. Others, myself among them, keep it as simple as possible. It's all about personal satisfaction. So, poke around the site then, set out to find what gives you a good, satisfying smoking experience.

 

[Aylesbury Pike]

As everyone else has said, there's no consensus. Having said that, there are certain concepts that you will see repeated by many people online. One is that a taller, narrower bowl is often preferred to "concentrate" the flavours of Virginias. A wider, shallower bowl has been recommended for complex English blends in order to let the tastes "open up".

For me, I think that the pipe selection has more to do with the tactile and aesthetic experience of smoking. Certain pipes just give a certain experience when they are held and smoked and this may suit certain types of blends. Certain pipes may be associated with certain memories also. You may have first smoked a certain blend in a certain pipes and so it always seems fitting to you to use that.

 

[AirOne]

Is there a consensus somewhere on which types of pipes smoke certain tobaccos best?

I’m not talking about individual tins, but more a broader sense, an “everyone agrees bend billiards are the way to go with va/pers, while church wardens can’t be beat for aromatics” type deal. If it exists.

At the end it comes down to individual tins. Test each of your blend with each of your pipe. No rules, just trial and error

 

[Morbius]

...a taller, narrower bowl is often preferred to "concentrate" the flavours of Virginias. A wider, shallower bowl has been recommended for complex English blends in order to let the tastes "open up".

When I first heard this advice I tried it out and found it to be true for me. Otherwise, stop over- thinking it. Make pipe smoking a relaxing respite from the trials and tribulations of the day. Make it your oasis in time. Spend an hour or so contemplating your navel or something more or less profound. Put as much or as little ritual in it as you like.

Everything can be important to optimizing your experience. Pick comfortable clothes that you don't mind burning little holes into. Find a space that's conducive to relaxation or contemplation, whether it's indoors or outside. The more experienced members here keep talking about getting to the point where you can just smoke a pipe without thinking about packing and cadence and breathing, I hope I live long enough to become as one with my pipes as they seem to be. The only time I have experienced that was when I was smoking while reading a book. (An A.E.W. Mason yarn.) I just forgot about the pipe and kind of let it smoke itself. It was a burley blend and it was the best smoking experience I've had yet.

 

[Searock Fan]

I don't know about "consensus", but I find that the high grade Italian makes smoke English best. Of course, if you only have one pipe and can't rest it very much, I find a meerschaum is hard to beat.

 

[Hutch Piper]

It’s all personal preference. I think all blends go great in a cob, for example. They are my best smoking pipes.

 

[OverMountain]

Not on a single thing regarding pipe smoking.

Never truer words have been spoken on this forum

 

[OverMountain]

When I first heard this advice I tried it out and found it to be true for me. Otherwise, stop over- thinking it. Make pipe smoking a relaxing respite from the trials and tribulations of the day. Make it your oasis in time. Spend an hour or so contemplating your navel or something more or less profound. Put as much or as little ritual in it as you like.

Everything can be important to optimizing your experience. Pick comfortable clothes that you don't mind burning little holes into. Find a space that's conducive to relaxation or contemplation, whether it's indoors or outside. The more experienced members here keep talking about getting to the point where you can just smoke a pipe without thinking about packing and cadence and breathing, I hope I live long enough to become as one with my pipes as they seem to be. The only time I have experienced that was when I was smoking while reading a book. (An A.E.W. Mason yarn.) I just forgot about the pipe and kind of let it smoke itself. It was a burley blend and it was the best smoking experience I've had yet.

As a skill is over learned it goes from being a conscious task, into an automatic behavior. Repetition. The best way to start IMO is scooping a codger blend and packing with your finger when you think you’re ready to become one with the elements

 

[prairiedruid]

Trial and error. I have blends that really sing in a certain pipe and taste totally flat in others even with basically the same chamber dimensions.

 

[Briar Lee]

Is there a consensus somewhere on which types of pipes smoke certain tobaccos best?

I’m not talking about individual tins, but more a broader sense, an “everyone agrees bend billiards are the way to go with va/pers, while church wardens can’t be beat for aromatics” type deal. If it exists.

I’ve been smoking pipes since 1972 when I was 14 and I’ve lost all count of how many I’ve had and sold and bought.

Every pipe smoker is different, every pipe is not the same, and blends all vary.

What I’ve found is this—-

You will never have a prettier girl sitting next to you than your blend smells.

So, I found out young to smoke Palidin’s Blackcherry in the dormitory lobby in my E A Carey slightly bent Apple.

In other boy’s dorm rooms (never my own) I’d smoke English blends in my WDC 11” Giant Wellington.

Countless pipes later I smoke aromatics in smaller pipes I carry around in a shirt pocket and catfish bait stinky latakia blends in big Sherlock Holmes type bent pipes.

Holmes and Watson were buddies.

Neither one ever caught the pretty girl at the end of the story, that I recall.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

I pick whatever pipe and tobacco call to me at the time and enjoy.

 

[Sobrbiker]

I pick whatever pipe and tobacco call to me at the time and enjoy.

Yup.
But I most often smoke pipes the chambers of which are 1.5-2x deep as they are wide, most often .75-.8” wide by 1.2-1.5” deep.
That may change if, god forbid, I find myself an old man living alone and take up smoking indoors.
But I don’t do heavy lat/english or many aromatics.

 

[theTomTom]

pipe size does have an impact on some blends. Any blend smoked in a .60 diameter by 1.2" deep bowl, will taste vastly different then smoked in say a 1" diameter by 1.9" deep bowl.

I see often the same recommendations of "smoke this" in a "pipe x" , but perhaps those recommendations were fine and sensible when every company made "pipe x" with the same chamber shape.

A lot of dublins are not dublins if you judge by external shape, let alone internal bowl shape.

But in my current run of trying new blends to replace the old, and the forgotten... Some aspects have popped up. And its really pissin me off.

The dunhill kids created a pipe shape called the prince, the "broad but relatively shallow" chamber to smoke with alot of english blends. It was a success as its still made, in various chamber shapes and dimensions.

One asks, "if i see people still smoking "english" blends in a sulu, or billiard or pot or canadienne, does the Prince really improve much?"

And with the cost of a decent "prince sized chamber" the same cost of a typical pound of GOOD tobacco.... it raises questions in a cheap skate like me.

 

[TheZaxx]

pipe size does have an impact on some blends. Any blend smoked in a .60 diameter by 1.2" deep bowl, will taste vastly different then smoked in say a 1" diameter by 1.9" deep bowl.

I see often the same recommendations of "smoke this" in a "pipe x" , but perhaps those recommendations were fine and sensible when every company made "pipe x" with the same chamber shape.

A lot of dublins are not dublins if you judge by external shape, let alone internal bowl shape.

But in my current run of trying new blends to replace the old, and the forgotten... Some aspects have popped up. And its really pissin me off.

The dunhill kids created a pipe shape called the prince, the "broad but relatively shallow" chamber to smoke with alot of english blends. It was a success as its still made, in various chamber shapes and dimensions.

One asks, "if i see people still smoking "english" blends in a sulu, or billiard or pot or canadienne, does the Prince really improve much?"

And with the cost of a decent "prince sized chamber" the same cost of a typical pound of GOOD tobacco.... it raises questions in a cheap skate like me.

Re: your first line, how is it different?

 

[Waning Embers]

Re: your first line, how is it different?

I doubt you'll get a reply from TomTom.

For some there's a difference and for others there isn't.

 

[Brad H]

Ole TomTom isn’t with us anymore

 

[bullet08]

You can smoke whatever you want in whichever pipe you want. Having said that wider pipe for complex blend, and narrow pipe for single, or simpler blend. And codger blends go great with corn cob.