Why people hate aromatics

[mso489]

I've said it before, the inventory at most retailers strongly suggests that aromatics carry the pipe tobacco industry. So from that point of view, all of us who enjoy pipe tobacco have to acknowledge that aromatic smokers carry a large part of the industry and enable those of us who smoke mostly non-aromatic to keep enjoying a wide variety of the blends we prefer. So, credit where due. All those exotic flavored blends from mango to banana keep the unflavored blends abundant and available.

 

[misterlowercase]

I remember reading that the original aromatics were oriental leaf tobacco's, as they provided an aromatic quality to the tobacco. If you even look up oriental tobacco it's definition is a highly aromatic type of tobacco.

That's a good point.
I personally think that all tobaccos are naturally aromatic,

some more than others as noted about the Orientals.
The term "aromatic" has suffered massive language rot and doesn't mean what it used to mean, just like the word gay isn't usually taken to mean happy or carefree anymore.
The term aro is understood by most to be of the goopy sort,

that's just the way the word has evolved or devolved or whatever.
Stuff like this:

Klompen Kloggen probably lived up to it's name, clogging a pipe with goopy tar.
The ad is from 1965.
Does anyone here have praises to sing about Klompen Kloggen?


My favorite tobacco would rightfully fall under the aromatic umbrella - Velvan Plug.

Is it an aromatic?

No, not really.
Why not?
Because the way we use the language doesn't allow it to be.
Things haven't really changed much.
Old codgers smoking OTC's in drugstore pipes used to scoff at the dudes who adored British baccy and usually smoked English briar - likewise, those tasteful gents would rib right back at the rubes.
You may have been seen as peculiar if you smoked Bond Street.
Longhairs in the 60's/70's got poked for being fond of oddly shaped Danish freehands.
Etcetera & etc.
Suck my Dunhill.

8O

 

[deathmetal]

"Why do so many smokers enjoy aros?"

While we're at it:
* Light cigarettes

* American beer

* Fast food

* Metalcore
Why are these the 90% popularity range also?

 

[cobguy]

Why are these the 90% popularity range also?

Price and availability ... no accounting for some people's taste! :wink:

 

[philobeddoe]

A little birdie told me that Fleshlights are actually quite popular with our troops stationed in the Middle East. It beats the alternative....pun intended.

 

[matches]

I have nothing against aros apart from when I buy an estate from someone who ghosted the crap out of it with some cherry guck that grips the briar with a kind of aromatic rigor mortis.

 

[dmcmtk]

Fleshlight...ok, I just learned more than I needed to know!

 

[newfie]

I guess do guess I lead a sheltered life as I had to Google what a "flesh light" was.

So it wasn't just me then!!!!
Maybe I missed a point someone made above, but is there (and if not, why isn't there) a term or way to distinguish a cheap Aromatic tobacco from a high end one, such as Stonehaven, a blend someone referred to a few posts above?
Personally I get a wicked burn from anything treated with propylene, or whatever they add to keep it from drying out. Also, I get the flavouring, or topping, for the first part of the bowl and then it's just tobacco taste, quality dependent. Even something like a Lakeland, I never get the flavour the whole bowl, and maybe that's just me.
I don't abhor aros, but don't crap on anybody who loves them. Take cigars; I don't smoke, nor will I ever buy something like an Acid Kuba Kuba, but if you enjoy them and don't mind the smell of them going through everything you own, fill yer boots. Same as I would never store FVF in a plastic bag in a box with CCP in another bag.
In the world of online coffee discussions, we say "Drink what you like and like what you drink". That can be be applied to tobacco too.

 

[skraps]

I think MLC hit the nail on the head. The issue being the definition of "aromatic". I think the more appropriate descriptor these days for what most of us think as aromatic should be "highly artificially flavored".
Most tobacco has some sort of aromatic properties to it. All tobacco is cased, and many non-aromatic tobaccos have some sort of top note, albeit usually light and subtle.
I don't hold anyone's tobacco choice against them, nor do I see the need to bash it. Smoke what you like, like what you smoke. My primary issue with the "highly artificially flavored" tobaccos is that they are lacking the depth and body of less flavored, more natural selections.

 

[deathmetal]

I don't abhor aros, but don't crap on anybody who loves them.

It's a modern confusion to conflate "This product is crap and inferior" with "Anyone who uses it is a moron."
I blame American beers. Beer snobs see people snuffling down the watery soda-pop style beers and think, "You'd have to be a moron to do that."
Maybe. Then again, you need to be able to call something out for being lesser, or broken, or bad, without people getting their panties in a wad because they feel personally insulted.
It's like the grandfather of PC. Every choice must be equal, or someone will feel bad, and that's worse than Hitler and Satan having a lovechild midwifed by Charles Manson.
I have tried to like aros. They make me sad. The symbolic flavoring is just... not going to do it for me. I like semi-aros however, a nebulous category in which we might include Royal Yacht :worship: and University Flake.
I was interested to see that the new Russ O. blends tend to emphasize the semi-aro characteristic in their description. Smart choice, and captures what is I think a rising part of the pipe tobacco market: people who don't mind flavor-enhanced tobaccos but really do not want soft drink style flavor replacement.

 

[misterlowercase]

I think the beer analogy is a good one.

I'd be curious to see sales figures and try to gauge how much of the market that the craft brewers have captured.
I think something similar may be happening with pipe tobacco.

the demographics certainly are changing, with younger people getting into it who are generally "plugged in" and as such tend to develop a more connoisseurly criteria for evaluating stuff - as in everything, not just tobacco.
And that's the grind of the gristle to me,

this new expanded digital world.
In the past, most Americans were quite insulated,

now with the rise of globalization and the internet,

there is no lack of information,

and in the case of much social media,

influence.
I think back to the Beats and their love of espresso,

it took a good long time for decent coffee to become mainstream in the USA, but now it is.
I dunno what I'm trying to say here,

redirect:
I'd like to know what was ground-zero for the Continental styled goopy aro trend,

was it with Borkum Riff which was intro'd in 1969?
This 1971 BAT doc talks of Borkum Riff and the extremely high humectant content of 13% - 14% diethylene glycol,

a goopy aro.

https://industrydocuments.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=rqyf0214
Was there a goopy aro that preceded Borkum Riff?
I unfairly categorized Klompen Kloggen as a goopy aro, but perhaps it was not, I think it was a Dutch blend and those tended to be more natural despite a sometimes heavy aromatization - but that was back when country of origin actually meant something, now those lines are blurred.
In most places,

baccies with excessive adulterants and smurfberry flavoring are known as "American style",

one of the few places that makes a distinction is Glynn Quelch, who uses the term but also rightfully identifies Denmark as an originator:

http://www.gqtobaccos.com/pipe-tobaccos/holger-danske-double-fermented/#.VizsbCuRYpo
When I think of an iconic American tobacco, I think of Edgeworth.
It's strange to me that the goopy aro's gained such mainstream acceptance in the USA because it seems to me that traditionally most pipesmoking Americans preferred "honest" (or even simple) baccy ifya know what I mean -

what caused the cultural shift toward an embrace of the aro?
:?:

 

[tarheel1]

I like a quality aromatics once and a while. But it is like eating candy all the time for each meal. I need meet and potatoes(lat blend) or something with veg (Va per) maybe a salad once and a while(Va).

 

[deathmetal]

One way to view it is as a type of cycle to trends and brands.
Ideas come from exotic locales, usually, and are first adopted by "power user" type people, then trickle down to the urban hip and finally the middle class suburbs. After that, everyone else.
Think of Apple: rebellious in the 70s, a luxury product in the 80s, and now, just another brand, albeit an expensive and dysfunctional one.

 

[iamn8]

I don't like them because of the false advertising.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Apple dysfunctional? Just another brand? OK, label me a fanboi! As long as you don't call us MacHeads morons or unfit to live.....
As to tobaccos, I agree fully with a "live and let live" with whatever you smoke.

 

[warren]

These days Apple is the only tech stock which is in the hardware business, I'd put any money in. It's a money making machine which thoroughly understands and caters to it's target audience. Even many of the analysts and market pundits do not understand Apple. I'm pretty much a PC quy when it comes to computers but, I can recognize a blue chip when I see it. They aren't particularly interested in the gamer market but, they've got the rest of the field covered, covered well and every other company competing directly with an Apple product is, at this time, an also ran, desperately playing catch up.

 

[warren]

These days Apple is the only tech stock which is in the hardware business, I'd put any money in. It's a money making machine which thoroughly understands and caters to it's target audience. Even many of the analysts and market pundits do not understand Apple. I'm pretty much a PC guy when it comes to computers but, I can recognize a blue chip when I see it. They aren't particularly interested in the gamer market but, they've got the rest of the field covered, covered well and every other company competing directly with an Apple product is, at this time, an also ran, desperately playing catch up.
Disclaimer: Do not, I repeat, do not take any of your hard earned moneys and buy Apple based on my impressions. Do your own research and see if it would fit your investing philosophy.

 

[gloucesterman]

Apple has an uncanny ability to see where the industry is going or maybe just the vison to see where it could go and then forging the means to get there. When you realize that the phone you hold in your hand has more computing power than the computer that took up a whole floor at MIT, you suddenly comprehend just how powerful vision can be. Today it's about global communications and the computer is just a small piece of it. I can now access anything I once needed a computer for from just about anywhere on my phone if there is Wi-Fi. Football, basketball, hockey, baseball, NASCAR, Ebay, music, my bank or my wife from just about anywhere and Apple has been at the forefront most of the way. Pretty remarkable.

 

[cortezattic]

Was there a goopy aro that preceded Borkum Riff?

The drug store shelves were loaded with aros back in the late '60s.

I sampled many of them, but don't remember them too well because they were one time only smokes for me.

I ended up smoking Prince Albert and Sail Yellow, mostly. I do remember Middleton Cherry, Madeira Gold,

and London Dock. All preceded Borkum Riff, which, if I recall correctly, hit my local drug store around 1966 or so.

 

[fordm60]

Hate seems harsh to me. I do not enjoy aros but I do not hate them. I started on aros and at the time loved them. But as I developed my palette they lost flavor for me. As flavor was what attracted me to pipes I felt a bit lost. But this forum had many suggestions on non aros so I started exploring and found the non aros to be good they had a good taste. I was hooked! I do not look down on aros smokers. They keep the art going, and it leaves more non aros for me. Smoke what you like and like what you smoke.
I am also glad I can walk into most stores and get a pouch or aros just about anyway. In case I run out of my preferred baccy.