Tobacco Tastes

There's a good chance I have them confused, then. I smoked some Frog Morton, which I've read is an English and a Virginia house blend my daughter got me whose name I can't recall. That may not have been a VaPer, or even a true Virginia. It might have been bagged by a woman named Virginia for all I know.

Thanks, trailboss!

Excellent advice. I do enjoy just smoking a pipe and being a boss doing so. However, I'd like to grab a tobacco and take a hit and say, "Oh! There it is! Now I see what people are talking about."

When you first start smoking, you're smoking the pipe way too hot, burning the tobacco til it's scalding your tongue, and just not in the rhythm and swing of discerning the nuance flavors yet. Makes sense at first that you feel like you're just tasting hot tobacco. Slow down your smoking as slow as you can smoke without letting the pipe go out. Relax. Get your packing right, as you slow it down over the next few months you'll start to pick up on flavors. Even though there are many similar blends done over and over, there are hundreds of unique blends with unique flavors. This also very much depends on what tobaccos you're smoking and other factors.

Many, many factors. One good thing Matthew pointed out above is you don't know what to expect yet, you don't know what Perique tastes like on its own rather than in a blend, and not enough to taste how much of the component leaf of red Va is in the blend. As he said, smoking the tobaccos individually will show you what the leaf cure and shade tastes like. Perique is sour, prune like, raisin, and more so cinnamon raisin when it's blended  with good Virginias. Stoved Virginia and bright Virginia mixed tastes like fresh baked bread, a little hay and grassiness depending on the grades. Pure Latakia tastes like a smokey campfire but has different regions and qualities. Age on tobacco can further smooth a certain varietal and make for even more nuance. This is stuff that you pick up over years, and not in days or weeks.

Jim makes an excellent point about toppings. Leaf varietals themselves are one thing, but once they throw in tonquin bean, Rum, anise, heliotropin, and a bunch of other flavors it's gets really hard to taste it all. Gawith Hoggarth & Co. has many Flake tobaccos with 3 or 4 or more toppings on top of 2-3 different tobaccos and it gets hard to taste a whiskey topping under heliotropin or the vanilla flavor of tonquin.

That sounds like Orlik Golden Slice...even my abused palate picks that up, have you ever tried it?

Something I did too and it helped a lot! It is quite fascinating how for instance Perique changes the somwhat bland taste of pure Virginia into pure magic. Try the stuff pure and I guarantee you abandon it in disgust!

Golden Sliced was a pleasant surprise for me and I believe there is a bit of Perique in it but I might be wrong about that. The citris? I am still looking for that too....

Several drinks can do that for you besides coffee. Tea, hot or cold, and my favorite, ice water. I also find that apples are very good palate cleansers, which is good for me since I love apples.

Everyone has a different chemical makeup. Some have the ability to pick out flavoring, like Jim. I am more like you though, just can't pick out the things I read about in the tobacco reviews.

I've only been smoking the pipe for a couple of years, and don't have a sophisticated palate. So, subtlety is lost on me. But the big, loud differences between burleys, va/pers, Englishes, etc are noticeable. And heck, there ain't no mistakin' Capn Black Grape! 😆

I had to look this up... a grape flavored pipe tobacco? Good lord.

And yet, it has a bunch of favorable reviews. I don't think I'll be trying it, though...

Agreed, I didn't taste any pine either. Also I've yet to try it, but I've read about how many think Erinmore is pineapple flavored because of the pineapple emblem on the tin.

It took me nearly a year to get all the tobacco types straight in my head. And I couldn't figure out how so many blends could have the same two or three types of tobacco in it and taste so different. I'm still not tasting dried figs or citrus in anything I smoke, but there have been more and more smokes where I get great flavors that I hadn't previously.

When I first started smoking pipes I tried bunch of burley aros. They all tasted the same, and even when I learned not to smoke them hot I never found them to be very pleasant. At first I thought I didn't like aros, but then I realized it must be the burley so I tend to avoid burley-heavy blends. But then on occasion a VA blend will be bitey - and just as bad, *harsh*. Like stinging your sinuses and making you feel like you got smoke inhalation damage in a burning building even without inhaling.

I've found that for me, the most processed tobaccos are the smoothest, easiest to smoke, and have the flavors I enjoy most. Latakia, Orientals, Dark fired, Black Cav. I can do some burley in a blend if it's skillful, like Boswell's or Cult aros, and do like straight VA on occasion, but could live without them as long I have sweet and/or smoky.