Ghosting or just a funky palate?

[Behike54]

Yesterday I smoked some GLP Blackpoint in my Nording.

cleaned pipe and put it away


Today I smoked some GH Dark Flake (unscented) in the same pipe and got some sort of grape aftertaste. It was if the two tobaccos combined and some mutant flavor evolved. Yes, I could taste some Latakia.

I don't know what I was thinking?! I was hemming and hawing over what to smoke. One part of me was "smoke the BP again and really get to know it, move closer to it on the couch." But another part of me was thinking I hadn't smoked the DF for a while and go that way. The PRPBLEM is I only have two pipes and they have both had plenty of Latakia pass through them.

In the next month I will get 3 more pipes and will try to clean and separate a little more consciously, but until then I am at a loss.


On the other hand, maybe the DF and I just don't get along so well. It wasn't that it wasn't enjoyable, it may just be that kind of blend or the way it is prepared or some chemical anomaly?

Pipes.....can't have enough. Bummer.....

 

[Boxerbuddy]

Get some cobs to loosen up your rotation a little. You wont regret it.

 

[williamcharles]

Good advice regarding the cobs. Almost any tobacco will leave its calling card behind. A couple to a few bowls of another tobacco will take care of it. What I consider as ghosting is the taste of a tobacco that is downright stubborn to get rid of. Anything else is just a friendly reminder of a past smoke. I like to take advantage of such happenings. I love Condor but have only a wee tad left. I smoke a bowl of Condor and then smoke up to seven bowls of CH and it tastes like Condor. Strongly at first but milder with each succeeding smoke until I'm tasting CH again.

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

williamcharles said:

What I consider as ghosting is the taste of a tobacco that is downright stubborn to get rid of. Anything else is just a friendly reminder of a past smoke. I like to take advantage of such happenings.

I think this is a great distinction. We all smoke blends in pipes whose residual flavor colors the taste of the tobacco we are now smoking. Solution: smoke 2 or 3 bowls of the new tobacco in the new pipe. Real ghosting comes from such as the scented Lakeland tobaccos.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Get some cobs to loosen up your rotation a little. You wont regret it.

The Boxer barks the truth. 8)

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

Yes, get cobs, but your question goes further than a taste tainted or ghosted pipe.

I have long felt that my palate had more to do with the taste of a blend than the pipe. But even with brushing if I'd eaten and sucking on a piece of cinnamon stick for 15-30 minutes thereafter, I still only get all that a blend can offer 70-80% of the time. Most guys aren't nearly that scrupulous and claim to get good results; I question that claim. But then again perhaps only my palate reacts this way.

You've been smoking cigars for years; I think you know when it's the pipe or your palate. Pipe and cigar smoking are the same as regards the palate.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

I see pipes having a slightly different set of variables than for cigars, at least to my observation.

Alfredo, to a degree, I'm relating your sentiment to be akin to, "You've been eating prime rib for years, you should understand the nuances of enjoying barbecue."

What it comes down to is eliminating variables...if someone is concerned about ghosting, go get some cobs: they're cheap, and will tell you if your palette is crazy or you've ghosted a pipe. Plus, a few more pipes for rotation, of course, is never a bad idea.

I'm under the impression palette is a combination of the individual and the subject matter, so sometimes those of us that are adept at tasting one thing can have a pretty good (but not perfect) idea of what's going on, with obvious room for enjoyment (aka, improvement)--leveling the playing field for yourself and simplifying is elemental.

8)

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

In my experience tobacco is tobacco; yes, cigar and pipe tobacco is different, but not so different so as to not be as well tasted, one to the other. Your point about palate, that some of us bring a tasting speciality, wired into our mouths, to what we consume, runs counter to the fact that anyone who devotes himself to tasting the overtones of pipe tobacco, cigars or both quite usually becomes proficient. But as these overtones are subjective, even the seasoned tastes that he says are part of the gustatory
processing of that bit of tobacco can not only be questioned but simply denied by another. If these subjective tastes, that are reminiscent of a taste, but not that taste actually—if they were actual the substance itself, as in cocoa, would have to be present—
then how do you test for the preferential palate?

I'd prefer to keep the overtones that I might perceive to myself. Who has ever benefited to know that this bourbon is tastefully reminiscent of rye and char? I prefer to say for instance that this lat blend is very smoky and dusky, i.e. dark. These are palatial traits that everyone can recognize.

Kyle, you said "leveling the playing field for yourself and simplifying is elemental." What do you mean by this simplification?

 

[Kyle Weiss]

In my experience tobacco is tobacco; yes, cigar and pipe tobacco is different, but not so different so as to not be as well tasted, one to the other. Your point about palate, that some of us bring a tasting speciality, wired into our mouths, to what we consume, runs counter to the fact that anyone who devotes himself to tasting the overtones of pipe tobacco, cigars or both quite usually becomes proficient. But as these overtones are subjective, even the seasoned tastes that he says are part of the gustatory
processing of that bit of tobacco can not only be questioned but simply denied by another. If these subjective tastes, that are reminiscent of a taste, but not that taste actually—if they were actual the substance itself, as in cocoa, would have to be present—
then how do you test for the preferential palate?

I'd prefer to keep the overtones that I might perceive to myself. Who has ever benefited to know that this bourbon is tastefully reminiscent of rye and char? I prefer to say for instance that this lat blend is very smoky and dusky, i.e. dark. These are palatial traits that everyone can recognize.

Alfie, you certainly ain't wrong here. The thing is, everyone's gonna have their own procedure to do this. We can only gain from what we experience, supplemented by help and suggestions along the way. It is us as individuals that are "wired" in some ways and are "flexible" in others: we unconsciously ask ourselves, "What do I want?" --when we smoke. Tobacco does stay the same (in a sense, aside from aging and how we interact with it when it gets into our pipes), but we just gotta do the best we can--when it comes to a point of agreement that "Tobacco 'A' has Flavor 'B,'" that we seem to connect with each other on that level, and even then who knows--did one guy's sense of "cocoa" in one effect the logical part of the brain that says it should be there or is it actually there? The only tongue you can really trust is your own, but that goes without saying. As someone who isn't as dialed in as the next guy to pipe tobacco, I can't say for sure what others are tasting, or should taste, but there is a minimization process that can be deduced so the variables from here-to-there to each smoker is employed. Which is a great segue into the next part...

Kyle, you said "leveling the playing field for yourself and simplifying is elemental." What do you mean by this simplification?

...the act of reducing things that may impart "falseness" in anything one tastes. A dirty glass with some kind of chemical or other residue in it isn't going to do much good to the fella tasting whisk(e)y. Overly acidic or alkaline water ain't gonna do much good to the guy who is attempting to taste specific flavors of an espresso. I couldn't imagine a "one pipe fits all tobacco" approach would do much good to the guy tasting tobacco, so of course, we would do good in suggesting a cheap cob investment to really get someone on a "level playing field" would certainly simplify his questions in regard to tobacco tasting.

8)

 

[Behike54]

Speaking of COBS, got one in the mail today! bwahahahahaha!!!!!!

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Speaking of COBS, got one in the mail today! bwahahahahaha!!!!!!

...time to tune-in your "snob's palette," sir.

8)

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

The idea of a group dedicated to tasting all getting the same cob is somewhat like what happens at slow-smoking contests; they all smoke exactly the same new pipe and are given an equal amount of one tobacco.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Okay, well, game on, then:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lxPgdpIupz8" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" loading="lazy" allowfullscreen></iframe>

:lol:

8)

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

Who can puff through a bowl and incinerate a given amount of tobacco the fastest is indeed a much lesser contest of skill than who can smoke that bowl the longest.

Anyone can do this.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Well, if this were a case of who can be serious the longest, I've unquestionably lost.

Also, I suspect those gents have tongues of granite.

Also also, enjoy your cob, Behike.

8)

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

Sorry, but my brain doesn't get comedy. But now that I think of it, it is funny. On occasion I've been told to lighten up.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Sorry, but my brain doesn't get comedy. But now that I think of it, it is funny.

Hey now, comedy has no place in absurdity. Or is it the other way around? Or is it sarcasm and seriousness?

No wonder I want to live in space.

8)

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

I think an absurd views overrides the comedic, although I have no comprehensive knowledge of the absurd. The nearest I got to it was reading Camus in high school. But if that view is taken, there is no rhyme or reason to the mechanics of the universe as it applies to the emotional logic of our lives. Comedy is not about the proper existentialist view to be taken in an absurd universe but an adjustment to our circumstances that chooses to laugh at its vagaries, a "capricious, eccentric, or unpredictable action (Merriam-Webster online)."

In John Huston's "The Night of the Iguana," Richard Burton, Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr are holed up in a Mexican hotel. Each of them in their own way is psychologically at their end. Life holds no more possibilities. Tennessee William's play seeks answers to their dilemmas. Answers occur and these people go on. But in depicting these characters there is a wide swath of comedy. They are pitiful and inept. Comedy intervenes in spite of their predicaments. So although this is not absurdist but really psychological and existentialist, comedy can find its place. And brain-dead comedy me laughed.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Not to derail this even further, but sometimes comedy is for the comic and not the recipient. Absurdity included.

That just makes the comic a jerk, on the other hand. Or just able to roll with the punches of a complicated world for the sheer sake of it.

I wasn't kidding about space, though. Camus can hang with me in space. I'll probably go Event Horizon on him eventually, though.

8)

 

[jefe1037]

Also, I suspect those gents have tongues of granite.

8)

I work in a restaurant; I have a theory which supports your hypothesis.

old people need food extra hot so they can tell there is something in their mouth after they have worn out their taste buds.

extrapolating to the world of pipe smoking, tongue bite serves a purpose: once we all abrade all our taste buds off with a lifetime of spicy food, smoke, and burnt mouths from coffee, we still can smoke despite everything tasting like Styrofoam.