"Tongue Bite" is a complicated phenomenon...
kilted1":nqg6hoce said:
While I think that for many tongue bite can be an 'issue' with Virginia Tobaccos (due in large part to high natural sugar content)
In fact, this is a commonly held belief, but one which is not founded in reality. Truth is, higher sugar content result in a more acidic smoke, which is far
less likely to cause tongue bite than the more alkaline smoke from tobaccos with less sugar, especially those with higher percentages of nitrogenous compounds that tend to make the smoke more alkaline. In fact, sugars are often added to tobaccos for the very purpose of smoothing them out. Sugar is not the culprit.
Burley tobacco is an excellent example of the other side of the disk, as it contains almost no sugar, and lots of nicotine (an alkaloid), which, especially if the leaf is immature, will produce a high pH smoke that can be quite irritating. Burleys are either sweetened to mitigate this, or blended with high sugar virginias for the same purpose. There is no tongue bite that could rival what I've experiences smoking straight raw, young burley. An entire circus trainful of fire eaters parading across my tongue in petrol soaked socks would have had a less caustic effect.
Body chemistry plays a huge role in tongue bite. There are tobaccos that friends of mine can smoke day in and day out that, to me, are like sucking on the business end of an oxy-acetylene torch. Conversely, stuff that I enjoy with no ill-effect singes and sears their tongues without mercy. We've all experienced something similar. Reading through tobaccoreviews.com will invariably raise some eyebrows, as ones favourite tobacco is panned for biting like a rabid weasel, whilst another that the reader may find particularly vitriolic is lauded by the reviewer as being smoother than a black velvet rendering of Perry Como.
Much is talked about "tecnhique," but my experience is that smoking rate doesn't make much difference, if any. The stuff that bites me will do so even if barely smoldering, sipped through a CrazyStraw. Packing does seem to make some difference, as a more dense pack results in a more dense smoke. Often, loosely filling a pipe, for me, yields more flavour, and less pain, but if the combination of pipe and tobacco is going to bite, it's going to bite, either like a Piranha or a Great White Shark.
Speaking of pipe and tobacco combinations, the pipe is the one thing that people rarely point to when they discuss bite. Again, my experience is that there are pipes that will turn any tobacco into the brimstone of Dante's Inferno, and others that will render the wildest of feral tobaccos tame and mild mannered. One estate pipe was particularly fitful for me. Nothing was smooth from the thing, though it had smoked for a few years before I got it, and a couple of years by me. I finally ground out the cake, and the maker's bowl coating, and started over. It was like breaking in a brand new pipe, but after a couple dozen bowls, it smoked wonderfully.
Sometimes, it's the particular combination of pipe and tobacco that doesn't work, like the aged Renaissance I'm smoking right now. In this particular GBD, it's a little sharp around the edges. In the Castello I smoked yesterday, it was soft and delicious. But, this pipe works wonders with Piccadilly, so it's not really to blame. Neither is the tobacco. It's just one of those combinations that doesn't work.
Yep. Tongue Bite is complicated...
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