Greg, et al, how can you say with any confidence that some pipe and tobacco pairings are better than others? While this may be true, a multitude of things effect how a particular smoke goes. How do you separate the pipe/tobacco pairing from the vagaries of the palate or what effect the telephone call from Aunt Sally had, whom you've never liked, who called just as you were settling in with the pipe? None of this is measurable, either the pairing and everything else except it. There is no possibility of establishing a baseline or control, and then varying one factor to test for a different result. There is no such possibility because so many of the factors influencing a smoke are subjective, hence not meaningful in finding certainty.
Take the palate. An expert taster of cigars such as Bryan Glynn of cigarobsession says he finds taste overtones, such as leather, spice and earthiness; but the very next taster from says he thinks the same vitola is a spice bomb. In the world of pipe tobacco some say Penzance is latakia forward while others say it is an Oriental; the same could be said about Gaslight. Sometimes I smoke it and find the melding of the VA/Latakia and Orientals while other times these elements taste separable, and no less savory for that. You can claim this is the pipe/tobacco pairing and I can point to Aunt Sally's phone call. And neither of would be correct because none of this measurable; none of us can say that a host of others smoking your blend duplicate our results to provide any reliability. Even if we got the same results we might well speak of them with different language.
I just don't think it can be done, but I'm willing to be shown the error of my ways
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