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The beginner pipesmoker needs to try out a good range of tobaccos in the early stages. Listed below are six tobaccos which are easy to smoke, being ready-rubbed, and easy burning. They also demonstrate the range of taste, from mild to medium strength. Ask your tobacconist's advice as well. He may have his own mixture which he has found particularly successful for starters. Whatever you do, don't leave a shop with cigarette roll-up tobacco instead! It happens all too often, and unfortunately, what works well in cigarettes is disastrous in a pipe! Many potential pipesmokers have given up too quickly through a combination of wrong tobacco, and not appreciating that the experience during the first few times you smoke a new pipe is nothing like the real flavour which the 'broken in' pipe will produce for you. Ask any regular pipesmoker.

So, you've got your pipe and appropriate tobacco. Here are some easy steps to perfection.

1. First, pick up your pipe and gently blow through the mouthpiece, to make sure that the airhole is clear.

2. In order to get the full measure of pleasure from your briar pipe, you will need to build up a carbonised lining to the entire bowl interior, which helps insulate the bowl for a cooler, more flavoursome smoke. Nowadays, many pipes come from the factory pre-carbonised. However, with most pipes, it helps to build up your own carbon lining by carefully smoking five to seven bowlfuls of tobacco. Over months of smoking, this lining will gradually thicken and should be trimmed to about 1/16th of an inch for best results. Handy hint: some pipe smokers believe that with a new pipe, this carbonising process can be speeded up by applying a thin coat of honey to the bowl interior before filling it with tobacco and smoking it for the first time.

3. Filling your pipe is next - and most important - step. If done properly, your first bowlful should be quit pleasant, but if done incorrectly, your pipe may run hot and bitter. Beware of tongue bite! That stinging, painful sensation on the tip of your tongue that makes many potential pipesmokers abandon the hobby prematurely, is caused by not filling the bowl correctly and by using tobacco that is too moist or too dry. Now to fill your pipe. Holding the pipe upright, trickle in tobacco until overflowing. Tamp down gently and repeat the process a few more times until the bowl is full, with a slight springy feel. Draw through the mouthpiece occasionally, to make sure that it is not plugged up.

4. Lighting the pipe should be preferably done with a gas (butane) lighter or wooden matches. Anything else will impart a foreign taste to the tobacco. The first light is called the 'charring light'. Its purpose is to create a charred 'lid' of tobacco that will hold the second light. When creating the charring light, move the flame all round the tobacco, igniting it completely, but be careful not to scorch the bowl rim. Once completed, tamp the charred lid down gently. Now you are ready for the second light. Puff slowly and rhythmically as you 'walk' the flame over the charred tobacco. Now sit back and smoke contentedly.

5. Because tobacco is a natural product, it will go out if not puffed regularly, so do not be afraid to use numerous lights or matches throughout your course of pipesmoking. And it is only natural to eventually hear (or taste) a little gurgle of moisture in your pipe. This is a by-product of combustion. In addition, some people 'smoke wet' and these natural juices should be immediately removed by running a pipe cleaner down the airhole, retamping the tobacco, and re-lighting if necessary. If your pipe becomes too hot to handle, let it cool off before re-lighting or else you could create a burnout, where the bowl burns through. This should not happen with a good quality pipe that has a good carbon layer built up and that is smoked properly. When smoking out of doors, take care that a stiff breeze does not fan your tobacco into a heated frenzy that could cause a burnout even in the best of pipes.

6. Proper pipe care can make your briar last a lifetime. Never separate the stem from a warm pipe as it can crack and break. Instead, when you have finished smoking the tobacco down to the bottom of the bowl, fluff out the ash and run a pipe cleaner into the pipe, setting it in an ashtray, bowl downward until it has cooled completely. Then separate the mouthpiece with a gentle twisting motion. Clean bowl, shank and mouthpiece thoroughly with pipe cleaners until they come out clean. If using pipe cleaning solvent, take care not to get any on the briar. It will take the finish right off! When thoroughly cleaned, re-assemble your pipe and place it in a pipe rack, bowl downward. As a final step, take a soft cloth and use it to lightly polish the bowl and bit. Handy hint: contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary to store your pipe with a cleaner in it. This will only impede the natural drying ability of air circulating through the airhole and bowl.

7. Your tobacco specialist has a great many assorted pipe cleaners, reamers, tampers and tools to help you in your pipe maintenance, and none of them are very expensive. Cleaning a pipe is great therapy, like a little gentle car maintenance. But with a pipe, you have the distinct advantage of being able to take it out and enjoy it any day, any hour and in any weather. There's no other hobby quite like pipe smoking!

Understanding the basic types of tobacco

 

Pipe tobacco have different tastes and smoking characteristics depending on the blend, flavour and method of manufacture.

1. In the UK, the largest volume of pipe tobacco is the classic British Flake and Ready Rubbed. The tobacco leaves are compacted under great pressure and heat is applied for days at a time. The cakes of tobacco are then removed from the press and cut on a guillotine into thin slices. The pipesmoker breaks the flakes up in the palm of his hand to the texture that suits the pipe and his own style of smoking. This type of tobacco produces an exceptional cool, slow burning, satisfying smoke but does require some skill and expertise. Increasingly, pipesmokers are buying their tobacco in the Ready Rubbed form. This is more convenient to use and gives almost the same qualities as the original flake but does provide more consistent, easy smoking which is ideal for the new pipesmoker.

2. The second category is Mixtures, including plain natural Virginia and Shags. With these, their unique character comes from careful blending of many different and exotic tobaccos, some of which may have previously been pressed and darkened and may include rich flavourings to enhance the aroma and taste, they are generally lighter in character and easier to smoke.

3. The third category of pipe tobacco is Aromatics. Originally mainly from Europe and America, these tobaccos have found enthusiastic acceptance in the UK especially amongst the younger pipesmokers, and several British tobacco companies now import or manufacture tobaccos of this type. An increasingly wide range of flavoured aromatic tobaccos is also becoming available from specialist tobacconists.

4. Finally, Twist and Spun Cut. These are really tobaccos for the enthusiast, usually stocked only by the specialist tobacconist. Full bodied, powerful and rich, they are made in the traditional style developed by sailors, spun to form a rope.

From root to hand in 75 moves.

 

The briar has nothing to do with the briar rose. The name is a corruption of the French word 'bruyere' or heath tree - a low shrub found throughout Europe, though principally around the Mediterranean. The true briar is only made of the very hard, dry root of the mature shrub, which can be anything from 50 to 250 years old.

 

Once selected, the roots are cleaned, inspected for flaws and cracks, stored for a season covered by earth, then cut into the 'ebauchon', a cube of root from which a pipe will eventually be made. This first stage in the production process is a painstaking one, and the loss rate is high. Originally, each pipe was hand turned, but with the rapid growth in demand, pipe-makers developed specialised machinery. Five stages are involved in the manufacture of the briar bowls and 75 or more operations for the complete pipe-making process. First, the rough blocks are trimmed to a workable size; then passed to the bowl turning machine; followed by the stem turning machine; after which they are drilled, and finally, the finished bowls are graded.

 

It is here that what is possibly the greatest mystery of the briar is resolved: the wide variation in cost between two pipes which at first glance seem identical. It is not so much the time needed for the maturing of the root, nor even the craftsmanship demanded of the subsequent manufacturing process. It is more to do with the rarity value of a totally 'clean', unflawed pipe. Once the grading (into as many a six different categories) is complete, the bowls are polished and the stems are machine bored to take the vulcanite mouthpiece. The finish is left to harden before the mouthpiece is inserted, then the whole pipe is given a last buffing down.

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