If I correlate the straight Virginia Blends on the Tobacco Reviews website by number of reviews, the top reviewed tobaccos, top fifteen or so twenty, all have average ratings of three or three point something stars. Likewise for English blends and Virginia based blends. This is not so for aromatics. Aromatics are in the ones, twos and threes. While more people smoke aros, the number of reviews are actually less so their poorer showing isn’t because there are a greater number of people reviewing them. So I ask, why are aromatics receiving such lower scores? Are they harder to make successfully? Is there a prejudice showing here?
Why Do Aromatics Rate Poorly?
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There are a lot of aromatic blends with three to four stars.
Go to the search page, look for Advanced and select Blend Type and then select Aromatic.
There are at least a thousand of aromatic blends that have been reviewed and the majority of them look to be well regarded. Of course I don't know how many of these blends still exist but the good reviews seems to more than the bad ones.
Go to the search page, look for Advanced and select Blend Type and then select Aromatic.
There are at least a thousand of aromatic blends that have been reviewed and the majority of them look to be well regarded. Of course I don't know how many of these blends still exist but the good reviews seems to more than the bad ones.
My personal opinion (YMMV) is based on a few reasons I personally would rate the majority of aromatics lower.
Flavor - aros rarely taste how they smell, even when smoked cool and slow. Especially the further into the bowl I get.
Smokability - this really only goes for goopy, PG heavy blends. They require more experience to properly smoke. If not smoked correctly, they're bitey and wet.
Lastly, tobacco quality - when a blend is doused in artificial flavor, does quality of tobacco really exist or matter anymore? Or is the leaf just a vehicle for nicotine and flavor at that point.
If I want flavor, I'll smoke a Virginia or Burley blend that's cased with something. This has proven far more enjoyable for me than"aromatics". I guess they're like a mild- aro. Blends like WCC Glass Slipper, McConnel Red VA, Astleys VA flakes, Capstan Blue, Country Squire Merriweather and Kingsfoil. I think what these blends have in common is quality leaf, and a light casing. This allows them to smoke like a straight blend but with the added flavor of an aro.
YMMV
Flavor - aros rarely taste how they smell, even when smoked cool and slow. Especially the further into the bowl I get.
Smokability - this really only goes for goopy, PG heavy blends. They require more experience to properly smoke. If not smoked correctly, they're bitey and wet.
Lastly, tobacco quality - when a blend is doused in artificial flavor, does quality of tobacco really exist or matter anymore? Or is the leaf just a vehicle for nicotine and flavor at that point.
If I want flavor, I'll smoke a Virginia or Burley blend that's cased with something. This has proven far more enjoyable for me than"aromatics". I guess they're like a mild- aro. Blends like WCC Glass Slipper, McConnel Red VA, Astleys VA flakes, Capstan Blue, Country Squire Merriweather and Kingsfoil. I think what these blends have in common is quality leaf, and a light casing. This allows them to smoke like a straight blend but with the added flavor of an aro.
YMMV
I also imagine much of the aromatic smoking population isn’t leaving reviews. The little online communities don’t represent the common smoker where 1Q and the likes reign supreme.
I’m always amused when an aromatic review starts with “I don’t like aromatics but…..”
I’m always amused when an aromatic review starts with “I don’t like aromatics but…..”
This. Also, many of us who got into it with the hobbyist mentality had bad experiences with goopy aros and apply our experiences to the whole genre. We're the ones complaining when the tobaccoreviews site has problems. The ones who got into it to just smoke tend not to care.
Actually. Why pay attention to someone else's opinion if you like the blend?
It's certainly possible that my premise is false. I just looked at the top most reviewed in each category. I didn't try to find an average of the total of each respective category. The reason I did this was a hunch. It seemed to me that whenever people mentioned an English, Virginia, (etc) blend that they loved, I would see that it was pretty well reviewed whereas aromatics that come up always seemed more controversial. I decided to try to see if aromatics were generally reviewed less favorably. What I looked at could still be a false picture. Take a popular blend like Macbaren vanilla Cream. It's really popular but averages less than 3 stars.
This is definitely why. The 1Q fans aren’t writing reviews. They’re content with what they have and the world doesn’t need to know about it or any of their other fleeting thoughts.
Plugged in aromatics and recommended/highly recommended and got 720. Plugged in every category that included Virginia and recommended/highly recommended and got 616.
Even so, the sample sizes on that site are, in general, very small but yes, the premise was a little off if looking just at what got the most reviews. Not sure there is much to be drawn even from the numbers above honestly. Total numbers of blends, current vs. unobtainable, all sorts of other factors - and I don't think every blend out there necessarily gets reviewed? But I've rarely been unable to find one that wasn't. I go there sometimes just to see @JimInks opinion or look up a blend I've read or heard about just to get more info about it, not really worrying about what particular flavors someone else might pick out, for example.
Because new smokers often like to leave reviews and have no idea how to smoke them. How many reviews for aromatics have you seen something like, "I smoked it in the worst pipe I own to prevent ghosting a good pipe". Ever get a good smoke out of a bad pipe? Smoke them slowly enough, and they taste exactly like the tin note. TR's kind of a joke anyway, don't base your likes on those of other people.
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Nah, I don't think your premise is false. Across the board aromatics are probably a little lower rated than say a virginia/vaper recommendation. There are some good points brought up already and I agree with most of them but I think we're over looking the two main reasons why aromatics are rated comparably lower:
1) Aromatics as a category is wider and much more diverse than say virginias/vapers.
(The difference between Esoterica's Dunbar and Dunhill's Elizabethan Mix is noticeable but still much much more similar than say the difference between Frog Morton Cellar and KBV's Sakura - yet they're under the same "aromatics" name)
2) Inexperience/unexpecting smokers keep being recommended aromatics.
I have no idea why B&M still keep pushing aromatics on new smokers, from a preparation to toking/stoking technique stand point they are much more tedious and finding your personal flavor is a long journey.
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And another thing is even as wide and diverse as the category is, it's also incredibly loosely defined - where do you fall on the casing vs topping debate? Is one an aromatic and the other not? Or are they all aromatics?
Didn't see Embers' reply before I typed out my essay
but yeah what he said basically!PS: feels very similar to those Yelp reviews of popular restuarants where they leave a 1/5 stars complaining about how they couldn't get a table for 8 people at 7PM on a Saturday night without a reservation or that they couldn't find free street parking...
the kind of people who like reviews tend not to be as into aromatics. Some it's prejudice and many I am sure it's just a simple matter of if you're the kind of person that cares about nuances and the such who can smoke 50 blends that are nearly identical and tell you why each one is different are the kind most likely to write a review. And also aromatics don't really need reviews in the same way, do you like Vanilla? do you like Mango chutney then smoke the stuff that's aromatized with it. The other side of that is that aromatics don't need reviews since they can tell you the basics on a label.
Also I think aros are the in general (not always) the least forgiving smokes. You go fast and hard and they lose flavor. You dry them out too much or not enough and flavors go missing. So there is also that too. A lot of reviews I've read of some tobaccos especially aromatics I read as "I don't know how to smoke a pipe yet so this tastes like hot air".
reviews are a good resource but they're far from definitive. They're great if you stay realistic and take up the mantra of all reviews are the tobacco + the person who smoked it. It's amazing how many reviews I've read that all I hear is the review telling us how much their technique sucks. My favorite was a guy saying he won't watch his cadence cause that's for girls and most tobaccos suck because he can't enjoy them when he freight trains them because that's what you do if you can grow a beard. That one was the best cause it read as "I am too much of an idiot to live on this planet".
There's prejudice showing there. Aromatics account for about 90% of sales. That's the most salient review there is. The percentage of the pipe smoking community that posts reviews is tiny. Of that, the percentage who post worthwhile reviews is tinier.
Ratings are funny things. with a couple of exceptions, they represent personal likes or dislikes, not quality. BTW, check out the ratings for McClelland Christmas Cheers. A lot of those are in the 2's and 3's.
really shocked by how much I have to say on this.... But personally the reviews I do are when a tobacco surprises me. And most aromatics even the ones I love don't surprise me. I feel like me ranting about them is going to do less then the description on the tin will to get the person who will enjoy it too to try it. So not much point to sharing.
This is half of it. The other half is that folks who get online and join forums and pipe tobacco review sites tend to have this attitude of having graduated and were rewarded with a chip they could place squarely on their shoulders. Like they’re more of a pipe smoker because they’re involved in the online community, somehow. Now they’re among the fold of “real” pipe smokers because they smoke VA flakes or limited release burley blends, only 20+ year aged this and that, yadda yadda yadda.
If you save for your entire life to buy a certain car, you’ll immediately start looking down on the cars you drove to get you there, perhaps only because you now have this ostensibly better car.
People in that category tend to think that by smoking these non-aromatic blends, they’re somehow above aromatics. There’s some credence in being turned off by them based on experiences with cheap, PG laden blends early in someone’s pipe smoking past. But I’d say, by and large, it’s the craft brew/foodie crowd in the pipe tobacco world. You can’t sit here and fucking tell me that a Big Mac and a Bud Light doesn’t hit the spot or that a Crunchwrap supreme and a Corona w/ a lime isn’t sent from heaven; but online, you have to make sure everyone knows you detest anything that comes from a fast food joint and you wouldn’t be caught dead with anything other than such and such’s latest limited release sour or hazy IPA.
Enter the pipe smoker. I believe it’s called SSDD.
You lost me at Bud Light.
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To build on what sable' said, aromatic pipe tobaccos and their smokers own the pipe tobacco market, so a little defensive bragging on the part of non-aromatic smokers might be expected and even forgiven.
If it weren't for aromatic blends and their ninety percent plus of the market, there wouldn't be many non-aromatic blends or single leaf available.
Like so many, I started with aromatic blends, in my case, in the 1970's. When I came back to pipes after a long cessation in solidarity with my late wife quitting cigarettes, I smoked mostly non-aromatics for years.
Now I smoke some of each, though non-aros predominate. In aromatics, I like tobacco forward blends, that is, blends where the tobacco flavors play the dominant role.
If non-aromatic reviews tilt the balance that way, I'd say it is because these blends are the decided underdog that just don't sell as well. Often they don't burn as well either, to be honest. But i prefer them, but I like both.
If it weren't for aromatic blends and their ninety percent plus of the market, there wouldn't be many non-aromatic blends or single leaf available.
Like so many, I started with aromatic blends, in my case, in the 1970's. When I came back to pipes after a long cessation in solidarity with my late wife quitting cigarettes, I smoked mostly non-aromatics for years.
Now I smoke some of each, though non-aros predominate. In aromatics, I like tobacco forward blends, that is, blends where the tobacco flavors play the dominant role.
If non-aromatic reviews tilt the balance that way, I'd say it is because these blends are the decided underdog that just don't sell as well. Often they don't burn as well either, to be honest. But i prefer them, but I like both.
I don't know about now, but back 50 years ago, "codger" blends like Prince Albert, Carter Hall and Half & Half were more readily available than the multitude of blends that are available today and those were aromatics. Personally, the first blends I tried were Borkum Riff Bourbon and Captain Black.