cfyork
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Hey guys...new member. I started a small booklet on pipes and tobacco several years ago and never finished it. I figured I would post it here. The title should have been changed - originally it was about pipe tobacco but then I decided to go in a more philosophical direction (I think I can blame one of Mr. Pease's journal entires for this decision) and never went back and changed the outline. It is fairly short....
At any rate, unedited and probably has some stuff that would have been changed but here it is anyway:
A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO PIPE TOBACCO
Chapter 1 – A Brief History
Chapter 2 – Where Tobacco is Grown
Chapter 3 – Various Types
Chapter 4 – Pipe Tobacco By Season
Chapter 5 – Pipe Tobacco by Mood
Chapter 6 – The Evolution of a Pipe Smoker (aromatics to full)
Chapter 7 – Blending Your Own
Chapter 8 – Aging
Chapter 9 – English
Chapter 10 – American
Chapter 11 – Asian
Chapter 12 – A Guide to Quality Tobacco
Chapter 13 – Storing
Chapter 14 - References and Resources
INTRODUCTION: Why Smoke A Pipe?
In this age of political correctness and righting of wrongs and perfect health it almost seems a sin to suggest that someone do something as ill conceived and illogical as smoke a pipe. It will kill you! Some will say. It is a nasty, disgusting habit! Scream others. The days of the pipe are long gone! Say others. The fact is that there may be truth in all of this. Yet, the pipe endures and so does the pipe smoker.
Pipe smoking is not just an “activity”. It is a way of being. It is a statement of sorts the same way a nice car or a rolex watch is a statement. Despite what it says about what you do it also says something about who you are. Perhaps it would be good to understand what pipe smoking means and how it has evolved over the many years.
The pipe is a very old instrument and versions of it have advanced in most early civilizations. Those of us in America are very familiar with the pipe as a heritage of our forefathers on this continent the Native Americans. For them, the pipe was an object of great importance. One type of pipe was a Calumet which was what they called the ritual pipe of peace or war.
The pipe was a ritual instrument more than anything else. It helped to solidify things, promote treaties, invoke spiritual powers and define boundaries. In many early cultures pipe smoking was reserved for the elders or those who held positions of influence in the group.
Tobacco itself is a product of the new world and it is only natural that the origins of smoking it also go back to the new world where it was a type of offering to spiritual powers. The tobacco and the pipe together represented something beyond that which they embodied. The pipe was a symbol and the tobacco was the offering and the smoking was the act.
Tobacco was considered to be the ultimate sacred plant to the tribes of the americas. Tobacco preceeded anything else in terms of offering power and relevance. Every part of the pipe is considered symbolic: the bowl is the earth or the head, the pipe stem is the trachea or the conduit between this world and the next and the smoke is the result of the communion between the two spheres. The bowl and the stem were usually kept apart for ritual use. A red colored bowl was considered the most sacred type of pipe.
Is any of this important to you the average smoker? Probably not. However, knowing the history of something intimates us with the practice or the object of our affection. Tobacco and the pipe are an affection or objects of adoration, and rightly so. Understanding their original purpose and origin is part of the process of appreciation.
THE HISTORY OF PIPE SMOKING
To give an exhaustive history of pipe smoking would require not just this book but volumes of such books. This is testament to the long and complex history of tobacco and the smoking pipe. Rather than treat such an exahaustive history this brief overview seeks to highlight the important precedents in the history of pipe smoking and tobacco in general and help the reader to appreciate the many nuances of the worldwide pasttime that pipe smoking has become. Despite a waning influence in the political correctness of the recent times, it has been and still remains a very important part of cultures as disparate as modern America to the sands of Saudia Arabia.
To understand smoking from a historical perspective and as a worldwide phenomenon it must be understood that the two primary plants associated with smoking, Nicotiana rustica and Nicotiana tabacum, are both native only to the Americas. Thus, the growth and popularity of the plant are at their core a root of cultures that flourished and spread in the North and South american hemisphere. It was only upon contact with this part of the world that the practice spread to Europe and the Middle East and other disparate world civilizations. This is a fact easy to forget and often overlooked when considering the popularity of tobacco leaves grown throughout Turkey and Europe. But in the end each of those particular strains of tobacco were hybridizations derived from North or South America which acquired their unique taste and proclivities from the native soil and environment particular to the new regions in which they were developed.
Horticulturists have established that the original genus of the traditional tobacco plant derived in the Peruvian Andes circa 5000-3000 BC. It was there that it was first cultivated and subsequently spread throughout South America, eventually reaching what was eventually to be known as North America. When Christopher Columbus reached America in 1492 it was already a continent wide obsession that was soon adopted by many of the new world adventuers and subsequently brought back to Europe where in time it also flourished, both contributing to the value of the New World as a site of conquest and the economic value of the eventual colonies that were established there.
The information above is abridged from the wonderful book, Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization by Iain Gately, and a much more detailed history can be found there.
TOBACCOS BY THE SEASON
Each season evokes a certain mystique which in turn requires a certain type of smoking tobacco. Of course, in the end the only thing important for the tobacco smoker is to smoke what he enjoys. However, by involving oneself in the turn of the seasons and the various flavors of tobacco one can enrich the experience of smoking and move it beyond a simple sensory experience. Again, this is what moves smoking from the purely sensory to the spiritual. Spirituality is about appreciating the connection and harmony between the various things that make up life and learning to see the big reflected in the small. Even when smoking we can do this and in turn honor the spirit of the earth that allows us to smoke. Smoking is a spiritual process when we can do so in such a manner and as such it transcends everyday experience. With that in mind let’s look at the various seasons and how the various tobaccos relate to those particular seasons.
WINTER
“I have news for you:
the sea runs high, the stag bells;
the bracken’s red, shrivelled and shapeless.
The wild goose cries.
Cold seizes her wings.
Season of ice, high wind, low sun.
Summer has gone.
This is my news.”
- Irish Poem, Ninth Century
Winter is barren and cold and a time of taking in and preserving. It is a time of thought and contemplation and a time to let go. It was also known as the time in which the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest, for the dead walked with the living in winter according to legend.
Winter also relates to age and to things old and besotted with time. Because of this tobaccos which are well aged are proper to smoke during this period of the year.
At any rate, unedited and probably has some stuff that would have been changed but here it is anyway:
A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO PIPE TOBACCO
Chapter 1 – A Brief History
Chapter 2 – Where Tobacco is Grown
Chapter 3 – Various Types
Chapter 4 – Pipe Tobacco By Season
Chapter 5 – Pipe Tobacco by Mood
Chapter 6 – The Evolution of a Pipe Smoker (aromatics to full)
Chapter 7 – Blending Your Own
Chapter 8 – Aging
Chapter 9 – English
Chapter 10 – American
Chapter 11 – Asian
Chapter 12 – A Guide to Quality Tobacco
Chapter 13 – Storing
Chapter 14 - References and Resources
INTRODUCTION: Why Smoke A Pipe?
In this age of political correctness and righting of wrongs and perfect health it almost seems a sin to suggest that someone do something as ill conceived and illogical as smoke a pipe. It will kill you! Some will say. It is a nasty, disgusting habit! Scream others. The days of the pipe are long gone! Say others. The fact is that there may be truth in all of this. Yet, the pipe endures and so does the pipe smoker.
Pipe smoking is not just an “activity”. It is a way of being. It is a statement of sorts the same way a nice car or a rolex watch is a statement. Despite what it says about what you do it also says something about who you are. Perhaps it would be good to understand what pipe smoking means and how it has evolved over the many years.
The pipe is a very old instrument and versions of it have advanced in most early civilizations. Those of us in America are very familiar with the pipe as a heritage of our forefathers on this continent the Native Americans. For them, the pipe was an object of great importance. One type of pipe was a Calumet which was what they called the ritual pipe of peace or war.
The pipe was a ritual instrument more than anything else. It helped to solidify things, promote treaties, invoke spiritual powers and define boundaries. In many early cultures pipe smoking was reserved for the elders or those who held positions of influence in the group.
Tobacco itself is a product of the new world and it is only natural that the origins of smoking it also go back to the new world where it was a type of offering to spiritual powers. The tobacco and the pipe together represented something beyond that which they embodied. The pipe was a symbol and the tobacco was the offering and the smoking was the act.
Tobacco was considered to be the ultimate sacred plant to the tribes of the americas. Tobacco preceeded anything else in terms of offering power and relevance. Every part of the pipe is considered symbolic: the bowl is the earth or the head, the pipe stem is the trachea or the conduit between this world and the next and the smoke is the result of the communion between the two spheres. The bowl and the stem were usually kept apart for ritual use. A red colored bowl was considered the most sacred type of pipe.
Is any of this important to you the average smoker? Probably not. However, knowing the history of something intimates us with the practice or the object of our affection. Tobacco and the pipe are an affection or objects of adoration, and rightly so. Understanding their original purpose and origin is part of the process of appreciation.
THE HISTORY OF PIPE SMOKING
To give an exhaustive history of pipe smoking would require not just this book but volumes of such books. This is testament to the long and complex history of tobacco and the smoking pipe. Rather than treat such an exahaustive history this brief overview seeks to highlight the important precedents in the history of pipe smoking and tobacco in general and help the reader to appreciate the many nuances of the worldwide pasttime that pipe smoking has become. Despite a waning influence in the political correctness of the recent times, it has been and still remains a very important part of cultures as disparate as modern America to the sands of Saudia Arabia.
To understand smoking from a historical perspective and as a worldwide phenomenon it must be understood that the two primary plants associated with smoking, Nicotiana rustica and Nicotiana tabacum, are both native only to the Americas. Thus, the growth and popularity of the plant are at their core a root of cultures that flourished and spread in the North and South american hemisphere. It was only upon contact with this part of the world that the practice spread to Europe and the Middle East and other disparate world civilizations. This is a fact easy to forget and often overlooked when considering the popularity of tobacco leaves grown throughout Turkey and Europe. But in the end each of those particular strains of tobacco were hybridizations derived from North or South America which acquired their unique taste and proclivities from the native soil and environment particular to the new regions in which they were developed.
Horticulturists have established that the original genus of the traditional tobacco plant derived in the Peruvian Andes circa 5000-3000 BC. It was there that it was first cultivated and subsequently spread throughout South America, eventually reaching what was eventually to be known as North America. When Christopher Columbus reached America in 1492 it was already a continent wide obsession that was soon adopted by many of the new world adventuers and subsequently brought back to Europe where in time it also flourished, both contributing to the value of the New World as a site of conquest and the economic value of the eventual colonies that were established there.
The information above is abridged from the wonderful book, Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization by Iain Gately, and a much more detailed history can be found there.
TOBACCOS BY THE SEASON
Each season evokes a certain mystique which in turn requires a certain type of smoking tobacco. Of course, in the end the only thing important for the tobacco smoker is to smoke what he enjoys. However, by involving oneself in the turn of the seasons and the various flavors of tobacco one can enrich the experience of smoking and move it beyond a simple sensory experience. Again, this is what moves smoking from the purely sensory to the spiritual. Spirituality is about appreciating the connection and harmony between the various things that make up life and learning to see the big reflected in the small. Even when smoking we can do this and in turn honor the spirit of the earth that allows us to smoke. Smoking is a spiritual process when we can do so in such a manner and as such it transcends everyday experience. With that in mind let’s look at the various seasons and how the various tobaccos relate to those particular seasons.
WINTER
“I have news for you:
the sea runs high, the stag bells;
the bracken’s red, shrivelled and shapeless.
The wild goose cries.
Cold seizes her wings.
Season of ice, high wind, low sun.
Summer has gone.
This is my news.”
- Irish Poem, Ninth Century
Winter is barren and cold and a time of taking in and preserving. It is a time of thought and contemplation and a time to let go. It was also known as the time in which the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest, for the dead walked with the living in winter according to legend.
Winter also relates to age and to things old and besotted with time. Because of this tobaccos which are well aged are proper to smoke during this period of the year.
ipe: