Choosing which tobacco you want to use is often hard, especially for beginner smokers.
Just like food, choosing a tobacco has to do with your personal taste. At the restaurant, some prefer meat while others prefer fish. Don't hesitate to talk and share with other smokers, but most of all try a multitude of different tobaccos in order to build and educate your sense of taste, and to discover new flavors.
There is a very wide variety of tobacco out there ranging from aromatic to more natural and pure tobaccos. To help you decide, here are some tobaccos we recommend (or don't! )...
Clan:
A classic that all pipe smokers are bound to have tasted or at least heard about. A mixture of Black Cavendish, Burley, Maryland and Oriental.
You will appreciate its wonderfully smooth burning, a pleasure for the beginner smoker. The Clan has the advantage of being available (almost) everywhere. Some will complain about its "blandness" or lack of character.
There are many versions of the Clan but we recommend the "original" version.
Kentucky Bird:
Another aromatic blend but less strong than Nappa Valley. Woody and flowery flavor.
Amsterdamer:
We recommend staying away from the Amsterdamer tobacco. You can find it almost everywhere for a very affordable price, but it gets extremely hot while burning. You run the risk of burning your tongue and even damage your pipe. It also retains moisture very poorly. You either hate it or love it...
A last little trick:
To fully enjoy your tobacco fragrances, avoid trying different tobaccos with the same pipe. Ideally you should have a pipe for each tobacco as the flavor of the tobacco will pervade the briar wood.
