What pipe is best for a style of tobacco ?

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Zedman05
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What pipe is best for a style of tobacco ?

Post by Zedman05 » Mon Nov 23, 2015 11:56 pm

Hey Kip. This is, of course as resident pipe expert, for you.
I just got a bunch of pipe tobacco from you, all different styles and types, along with a couple pipes. I am interested to know if there is a certain style of pipe to use when smoking certain types of tobaccos.
Is there a big difference in the bowl shapes makes when deciding on which pipe to use ? One bowl is wider while the other is narrower and taller. Is there a preferred method to packing a certain bowl shaped pipe (narrower bowl = slightly looser than wider bowl ) ?
Do I want to try to stick to one style of tobacco with each pipe, or one blend in particular ? I, at the moment, only have 3 pipes to go with, and obviously have more blends/brands/styles than that, but I want to get the best experience I can after all the time you put in aging the tobaccos.

I know there's a bunch of questions there, but I don't want to ruin the experiences with noob-type style ! Cigars are so much simpler; cut, light, smoke.

Thanks a ton Kip !!

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Kip
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Re: What pipe is best for a style of tobacco ?

Post by Kip » Tue Nov 24, 2015 6:45 am

Shape/proportion of bowls:
There's a great deal of speculation, largely from people who have no business speculating. I've heard tons of theories and I personally believe it all boils down to personal preference. I'd just experiment with a few different types of tobaccos and see what seems to work for you in a given pipe. I lend a bit more credence to cut style and packing than blend type (i.e. Flakes, broken flake, shag cut, ribbon cut, plug, etc.) - but still put far more weight on personal experience and experimentation than any of the theories floating around.

Blend/bowl designation:
I do this - to a limited degree. For the most part, I dedicate a particular pipe to a *type* of tobacco - English, Virginia, Aromatic, etc. There have been a few that I've dedicated to specific blends but only on rare occasions (such as when a tobacco is particularly subtle and gets muddled easily). At the very least, I'd keep three different style designations - aromatic, VIrginia or Virginia/Perique, and English (to include those called Balkan, or Oriental blends). Bold, smoky blends will leave their presence in a bowl and completely obscure subtle Virginia blends, for example.

That being said, any "ghosting" left by a past blend is usually correctable with enough persistence. Just ream out the bowl and start smoking something else until it's all cleared up. With few exceptions this will work - some syrupy aromatics will stick around for ages, for example.
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