I'm a long-time cigar smoker, but with substantial aid from all you enablers (I'm looking at you jmallen5), I finally gave in. I have just purchased my very first pipe. I've read the tutorials in the Gentleman's Essentials section, and will soon be procuring all the gizmos and doohickeys required to make me feel like a real pipe smoker.
My problem is, there appears to be an overwhelmingly large variety of tobacco out there, and my expertise ends with the hand-rolled kind. There's a whole new tobacco vocabulary to be learned. (What the hell is "flake"?) How does one decipher what is what here? And is there some kind of recommended sampler to be purchased somewhere, so I can figure out what it is I actually like? Since I'm going to try not to buy a whole fleet of pipes (yet), can I smoke different tobaccos in the same pipe without major cleaning every time?
You guys got me started on this, so I'm asking you to point me in the right direction.
My problem is, there appears to be an overwhelmingly large variety of tobacco out there, and my expertise ends with the hand-rolled kind. There's a whole new tobacco vocabulary to be learned. (What the hell is "flake"?) How does one decipher what is what here? And is there some kind of recommended sampler to be purchased somewhere, so I can figure out what it is I actually like? Since I'm going to try not to buy a whole fleet of pipes (yet), can I smoke different tobaccos in the same pipe without major cleaning every time?
You guys got me started on this, so I'm asking you to point me in the right direction.