How do you tell tobacco types? Newbie help

OK, so upon further reading online, I've decided to classify my tobaccos into aromatic and English blends. It's not a foolproof method, but it can help.

Tobaccos are compromised of Virginias, Burleys, Cavendish, Perique, and Latakia.

With that in mind, if I am purchasing tobacco online (or anywhere, really), once I receive it, what is the best method to help me classify it so I can dedicate my pipes and prevent ghosting?

Am I to assume that combined blends, like VaPers are given a separate pipes altogether?

Hope this clears up my initial posting. Thanks for any help.

Originally Posted by kzm007

aromatic and English blends... once I receive it, what is the best method to help me classify it so I can dedicate my pipes and prevent ghosting?

If the tobacco is flavored it's an aromatic, if not it's an American, English or Oriental.

If your smoking a lot of different blends of tobacco with only two pipes, it may be hard to get the true flavor of any of the tobacco you smoke. These pipes may well end up tasting like mud soup.

I would suggest getting 4 or 5 corncob pipes, use 1 for flavored tobacco, 1 for Va/VaPers and one for english etc.

[RevSmoke]

Originally Posted by kzm007

OK, so upon further reading online, I've decided to classify my tobaccos into aromatic and English blends. It's not a foolproof method, but it can help.

Tobaccos are compromised of Virginias, Burleys, Cavendish, Perique, and Latakia.

With that in mind, if I am purchasing tobacco online (or anywhere, really), once I receive it, what is the best method to help me classify it so I can dedicate my pipes and prevent ghosting?

Am I to assume that combined blends, like VaPers are given a separate pipes altogether?

Hope this clears up my initial posting. Thanks for any help.

Actually, this is much easier than you think.

Open up the pouch/tin and smell it. Yes, it is that easy.

Aromatics will have some kind of topnote to it that smells nothing like tobacco. For example, I am guessing that Southern Comfort will smell like a mixed drink. As we approach Thanksgiving, there will be tobaccos given a "casing/topnote" that will smell like pumpkin pie.

English blends will have a smell of Latakia - you will know it when you smell it. That is, if you define English blends as those with some bit of Latakia in the mix. (Some would say that any tobacco without a flavoring agent added would be an English Blend)

Burley blends may have other constituent tobaccos, but mainly burley. In the bag these would smell slightly nutty or buttery.

Orientals may or may not have Latakia (if it does, it might better be classified a Balkan blend), if they do, that will smell obvious. If they do not, they will have a rathe pungent smell, sort of spicy.

Virginia blends are naturally sweet and may smell in the bag/tin of citrus. While VaPers (Virginia Perique blends) will smell slightly of prunes as well as the citrus.

Personally, I have a couple VA only pipes. I also keep my VaPer pipes free of anything else, although I might put a straight VA in it.

I do not normally care for burley or oriental blends, so that's not an issue.

I have a couple pipes dedicated only to blends containing latakia, only because other things seem to pick up the Latakia taste anyway.

And, the pipes in which I smoke Aromatics, are pipes in which I smoke just about anything.

Hope this helps.

Great post, Rev. Thank you very kindly.

[MarkinAZ]

Excellent posts by D, RevSmoke, and drob (noted and bookmarked)

My would be, if the web page does not mention the particular tobacco' used in the blend (let's say Boswell'), I would simply pick-up the telephone and give them a call to ascertain the information. They are congenial folks and I would think they would be more than happy to give you answers to your questions. In fact, you could do that for any of the on-line retailers who do not mention the tobacco' in a particular blend...