A pipe for tasting?

[denholrl]

I've heard members talk about pipes they save just for tasting new tobaccos. I don't understand this practice. Why not taste a new blend in the pipe you're going to smoke it in? It will taste different in, say, a clay or a Meerschaum.

 

[Zeno Marx]

I've never heard of it, but the pipe world of today has lots of rules, expectations, and behaviors I've never heard of until the social media age. Who knew being connected to each other at this level could actually be a negative thing?

 

[MLBbreton]

I've heard people do it so they don't ghost a beloved pipe.
I do it with my workhorse cobs sometimes to see how the tobacco smokes in general. They are a good baseline. I'm not experienced enough to pick a pipe style or model for a particular blend yet so my cobs let me try them in a consistent format.
Then I move to different pipes and prove I'm still ignorant of what is going on .
Or I'll smoke it in a favorite pipe right away. Because I'm a rule breaker .

 

[Singed]

I'll use my Nording shortie to sample tobacco b/c its porcelaine bowl imparts no flavour to the tobacco. I find that meerschaum and even clay change the character of tobacco. The neutrality of porcelaine leaves me with a better impression of what type of pipe the tobacco will smoke in best. YMMV. All things being equal, what I consider smooth may give another tongue bite.

In short, it works for me.

 

[Singed]

I've never heard of it, but the pipe world of today has lots of rules, expectations, and behaviors I've never heard of until the social media age. Who knew being connected to each other at this level could actually be a negative thing?

It can have its drawbacks, overconnectedness. Let nothing online detract from your experience of pipe smoking, it's only opinion.