I wrote this about a year ago and it was published in the Pipe Collector. I was just rereading it and thought I would add it to the mix here.

As a member of several online pipe smoking forums and a member of the North American Society of Pipe Collectors (NASPC), I find I am exposed to an endless stream of potential tobaccos that I can read about and try. There are so many reviews of tobaccos on the Forums and also in the NASPC newsletter – consider Lou Zisholz’ articles alone and you are left with a boatload of options to try. I rarely see a review of a tobacco that says, “This is awful so don’t smoke it”. So how does one go about making choices that work and don’t just leave you with a pile of tobaccos that you did not like? How do you wade through all the reviews and all the “sounds good” propaganda and make intelligent choices? I for one don’t want to buy a tin of something I will “maybe like”. I am particular about what I like and don’t like and with a large family that I am still paying to raise I am careful about what I pick up to try. I would like some relative certainty that the tobacco I choose to try will be a keeper for me and not one that will soon be on the forums for trade. I know that the process can never be boiled down to absolute certainty but I think it can be worked into a system that actually minimizes the blends that I have piled up that I don’t like.

Some pipe smokers I have spoken with put a lot of weight on the reviews they read on various websites to help them in the process. I too have read those reviews and found that they cover the spectrum from like to dislike. I don’t particularly find that helpful and now find I rarely turn to the review pages until later in the process. Often the reviews wax eloquent about the flavour of the smoke being creamy and buttery. In fact I have written those kinds of reviews myself. I read of a tobacco being rich and smooth. This too is not altogether clear to me as to what the writer means. I think I understand what is being said but I am never really sure. What I want is something, whether a written process or a mental one, or a combination of both, that provides a measure of clarity for me in my choices. I want a process by which I can make a decision that has some relative degree of certainty. Of course there will always be exceptions to the process but at least there will be some method for a guy like me who does not have the time, energy or desire to just take the risk to buy something and just give it a try.

With that purpose in my mind, and being somewhat of a systems guy, I decided to try to put together a method for future tobacco purchases. I asked pipe smokers on two of the Pipe smoking forums I frequent how they go about choosing a tobacco. Their responses ranged from those who say “I try everything” to a very structured method with simple steps. I read all of the responses and thought through my own method of choosing tobaccos to purchase. After reading the responses from others I decided to write down my approach as to how I have chosen and tried tobaccos throughout the past 10+ years. I chose that time frame because I know that for the 20+ years before that I was much more random in my approach. If the tin looked interesting or the pouch was nice I would grab it. My cabinet was filled with all kinds of tins and bags that had a mere one pipe load smoked from them. It was truly a motley assortment of tobaccos with no real rhyme or reason to them. Around 10 years ago that changed for me. I became focused on Virginias and found that they became my go to smoke. As time went on I gave away or dumped the partial tins and bags into a jar of scrap tobaccos that I labelled “Hoover Blend”. I still have several of these mixtures jarred and sitting in the cupboard. Other aromatics I had, I gave away. The English samples I had, I also gave away. I focused my purchases on Virginias. From that settled place throughout the past 10 years I have branched out to try some Virginia Perique blends with good success and have added them to my cellar. In the past two years I have also begun to explore Balkan and lighter English blends. My cellar has a growing representation of them in the inventory.

Here is my process. I decided that my starting point would be to use my go to tobaccos as a base and to look at the components of each of those blends. I have smoked a pipe long enough to know what I like and don’t like. Thus my favourites would provide a place to start as I consider adding other blends. Once I have clarity on what each of my favourites is composed of then I have a mean by which to look at other potential blends. For me that meant creating what would act as a base tobacco in each of the following tobacco types: Virginias, Virginia/Perique, Balkan and English. I would know what tobaccos each of my go to blends was composed of and that would provide a basis for a comparison with the composition of potential blends. This is not something that I slavishly write out or list as it really is a small base – 1 of each blend that for me is the mean. Actually this is quite simple for me as the make up of those blends is easily committed to memory.

Once I had the baseline in place I took my wish list of potential tobaccos to try, those tobaccos that have piqued my interest from what I read and hear through my pipe smoking connections both real time and online. I divided the list into the categories above as I was able. There are always variants to the categories so I have added a category to my list that I label “other” for those that just do not fit into the main headings. My list is always in flux as I add and subtract tobaccos that catch my interest. I find that it has been helpful for me to categorize them by tobacco type as it helps me to keep in mind what it was about them that caught my eye. I don’t know if it is my “old-timers” setting in or what but I seem to easily forget why I put them on the list in the first place. This at least can serve to jog the memory a bit. It also is a help in the ordering process to match tobaccos to my palate at the given moment as well as plan for different seasons where I know I will smoke different tobaccos.

Under each tobacco type in my list I have begun to group tobaccos that I want to try by blender or company. For instance under the category of Virginia Perique blends I have subdivided the different blends into those done by McClellands, S. Gawith, Gawith & Hoggarth, Solani, Friborg & Treyer, Shop blenders, etc. you get the idea. The same is true for just Virginia blends, though there I make a distinction between flakes and rubbed out blends. Balkans and English also have categories. In terms of the few aromatics that interest me, I smoke them so infrequently that I have one blanket category for them. For me this helps me to focus an order to stock up my cellar on what I have been smoking. I can also do the order pretty quickly as I have found that some of the e-tailers I use arrange their sites by blenders. So use it if you like, but it works for me.

Periodically I go through my new tobaccos and visit the blender’s site or Tobacco Reviews and get info on the makeup of each blend. This helps me refine my list a bit and discard the ones that upon looking at them more closely don’t fit what I am interested in smoking and for some reason just don’t intrigue me enough to risk a try. I am not particularly interested in reading the PR hype regarding a blend from the maker or the reviews unless it is a blend with which I am totally unfamiliar. If I look at the reviews at all it is to see if the few reviewers that I have come to trust are weighing in on this one. For me the reviews generally come down to a matter of personal taste and that is a hard one to match for any of us. We have all loved tobaccos that others hate and vice versa. Once I have cleaned up my wish list, I note the ones that interest me in order of priority for ordering.

With my focused list, I go to my favourite web e-tailers and see what they carry in terms of these tobaccos. I read any write ups they may have (knowing that they are generally sales pitches, though some are better than others). I check the prices and availability of the blends. This also helps me to categorize what I will try next. Often I pick the top two or three blends on my list for my order. I usually take one tin of each before I have tried them. I am conservative in that I don’t want a pile of tins of tobacco around based on another person’s likes or dislikes. I want to have a cellar filled with stuff I enjoy. So after I have tried the sample tin – I find it takes me a full tin of tobacco before I can make an informed decision – then I will order some for the cellar. I find this way I rarely have stuff to get rid of by sale or trade and I always am smoking what I enjoy. If for some reason it falls out of favour I can put it aside in a jar and let it sit for awhile. For me one of the beauties of pipe smoking is the fact that my tastes are always in process. What I like today my change, but then again the circle turns and I may like it once more.

All of that may seem like a cumbersome process, but it really is not. It has become second nature and for me it has truly focused what I try and what I order. The one thing it does not take into account is the samples of tobacco that I receive from other pipe smokers and from some of the e-tailers. Those require a few adjustments but the method still works.