Back in the days of clay and corn cob pipes; all that smokers really wanted was for their tobacco to stay alight so they could continue sucking in smoke (blowing it out into the faces of others wasn’t considered anti-social back then; let alone harmful to the health of the so called “passive smoker”). However, pipe smoking habits and social mores have changed somewhat since then.
A Pipe Is Both A Prized Possession and an Indicator Of The Smoker’s Character
I’m probably generalizing; but, it seems to me that today’s pipe smokers are somewhat introverted, solitary, intellectual types who like people to see their pipe (as an object of beauty); but, they would rather be smoking it in quiet contemplation away on their own (in a study or library maybe). Of course, I could be mistaken and, maybe, it’s the armies of passive smokers who have driven the pipe smokers away from human company?
Whatever! Pipe smokers are still walking among us and they continue to enjoy their habit (whether anyone witnesses it or not). I have smoked pipes in my youth but found cigarettes a more convenient form of addiction; therefore, I would be one of the last to complain about smoke billowing out of the mouths of pipe smokers. In fact, these days, I find some remarkably attractive aromas wafting in the air around an active pipe smoker – smells that remind me of fruit, flowers, or, even dessert dishes of a custardy/vanilla type – all pleasant smells that are slightly mouthwatering and make me wonder what it would be like to actually taste the smoke from a Flavored Pipe Tobacco? With the exception of the committed fanatic health freak, I do notice that more people are prepared to be in the room with a person smoking Flavored Pipe Tobacco than used to be the case with earlier tobacco types.
But, How Does the Flavor Get There?
Different tobaccos have different tastes as do leaves from different parts of the plant but, by and large, these are differences in degree of the actual true taste of the smoke given off from burning tobacco – maybe the taste from Balkan black tobacco (of the type called Latakia) is stronger than that from blonder Virginia tobaccos; but, even that is not fruity. Flavored tobacco (known as shisha) has long been smoked in Arab style water-pipes (hookahs); but, in these, the flavor is usually separate from the tobacco
During the drying and curing processes for raw tobacco leaves (for smoking in a regular bowl and stem type pipe); there are steps that can be taken to naturally change the smoke’s flavor to resemble a “fruity” taste. However, the full details of how precise flavors get into Flavored Pipe Tobacco are, I guess secret ‘tricks of the trade” known only to the tobacco blenders.