Snooty Tobacconists and Exploring a New Hobby

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Trout Whisperer

Trout Whisperer

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Greetings, briar fellers!

Great place you have here! Glad I found it.

I have smoked a handful of cigars in my life, and a few months ago decided to explore pipe smoking. I researched tobaccos, pipes, and techniques, then visited a brick-and-mortar tobacconist in a town nearby.

I walked out of the store with an estate pipe and two ounces of their black Cavendish, which they evidently try to sell to beginners.

The pipe works well enough, but the tobacco is flavorless and not worth the trouble. So I returned in order to procure a Latakia blend. The clerk allowed me to compare the aroma of a blend with Syrian Latakia (HH Vintage Syrian) to another with the Cyprian variety. I remarked that I very much like the Syrian blend. He replied that I would need to develop my palate before he would sell me one of those blends, and walked over to speak with two customers looking at pipes.

Today, a few months later, I have four tins each of HH Vintage Syrian and Ashton Artisan's Blend. At the rate I smoke, they may outlive me, but that is beside the point. Plus I found a tobacconist who knows how to treat customers.

I also have a few other tobaccos, including Black Irish X (for when I'm in the mood for a burning-rubber flavor), and Ennerdale, for when I want a blast of artificial, floral things.

Happy piping to you!
 
First of all, welcome to this group of pipe lovers. I hope that you find the information available here useful. Secondly, there is no figuring how people run their business. I think that Latakia blends are the most easy ones to introduce to a new smoker. They have a good taste burn well and do no knock your socks off with lady N.

It is good that you have more then one tobacconist to go to. Happy puffing!
 
:lol!:

So, your pallette is too young for vintage Syrian, eh? (Smirk) Apparently he is too inexperienced a retailer to be working with customers! If he was any good you would have needed a hand truck to get what you bought to your car.........

Welcome to the forum!
 
Welcome to BoB. It sounds like you are in- hook, line, and sinker! Enjoy your new pipe and tobaccos. Before you know it, you'll have several more pipes for your rotation, and many more tobaccos to store.
 
Welcome to BoB! I hope you enjoy the hobby and your time here

"T"
 
Welcome to the fold. Were a small but happy lot. Glad you persevered and got the tobaccos you wanted. Aston Artisans Blend is sublime. Enjoy it in rude good health sir.

Jim
 
Welcome for another BoB newbie. It’s beyond me why any businessman would decline a sale well unless it was a bottle of bourbon and a new car to a 16 yo
 
Welcome to the friendly confines of BoB.

Yup i have met a few tobacconists like that. damn shame but clearly not interested in business.
 
Welcome to BoB! Your experience at the tobacconist is unfortunate, but not typical of most retailers and certainly not most pipe smokers, which are generally a very friendly and helpful lot.
 
Welcome to the forum.

Remember- humans are the sole source of disappointment in the world.
 
He won’t get salesman of the year.

If I go to a Porsche dealer, if he says I need to develop “road speed” before he sales me a car, I bet he gets fired.

wouldn't a shop want to sell whatever the customer wants? There are already very few cigar/pipe shops left...

guy sounds like a fool
 
Welcome to the forum! There is much to learn and experience with pipe smoking and the best way to learn is to smoke your way to experience, notwithstanding the ignorance of that fellow you ran into. Have fun trying new tobaccos!
 
Perhaps the snooty B&M owner doesn't quite realize that pipe tobacco hunters have dozens of other alternatives regarding where they buy their tobacco. He's too snooty, I guess, to know that he has some competition. If he was any kind of salesman, he would have given you a few grams for a trial smoking and let you make up your own mind. Some store owners just can't wait to go out of business!

Buy the tobacco blend(s) you want to try, somewhere else. Better yet, order sample-packets of various tobaccos from the larger tobacco retailers. Buy English and aromatic blends. Smoke thru all of your samples, and you'll zero in on tobaccos that you prefer. You could also buy small amounts of "bulk" mixtures. Smoke and try everything that you think you might enjoy.

You'll get to Nirvana sooner rather than later, and you don't need to deal with Mr. Snooty to get there.
 
You could be running into something other than snootiness. Pipers are opinionated. Pipers are strongly opinionated. People with strong opinions tend to lack the ability to get out of the way of themselves, so when they genuinely want to be helpful, their own biases get in the way of it all. What he said isn't completely out of line or without reason. Like anything with taste, you do benefit from developing the palate. It can be a difficult line. The majority of new pipe smokers will follow the route of aromatics and fruity blends. A much smaller percentage will fall in love with English and VAs. So a seller can sometimes be wary of scaring off a new client with a poor smoking experience. I used to work in a shop, and it is a weird, unpredictable dance. Of course, it never hurts to treat people well. We never refused to sell anything to anyone, but you can bet your last dollar that we steered people away from things.
 
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I’m thinking you didn’t really run into a tobacconist...you ran into a damn fool. Aside from the issue of treating everyone well...golden rule style...there’s the issue of small businesses all over the country having to close due to Covid-19 putting the brakes on commerce. Successful businesses out there typically rank their personal one to one interaction as the one most important thing to having customers return. Example #1: A hugely successful drive up espresso outfit (Dutch Bros) trains their teenage staff to ALWAYS chat with customers so as to mimic a friendly relationship (plus having a great product, of course). That’s done through your car window. The company mantra is that they are a “relationship company that also sells coffee”. I always drive out of there feeling better than when I went in. Example #2: A hugely successful ice cream parlor (Farrell’s) that ALWAYS seemed to have a line out the door was run by Bob Farrell, a local legend, ran his shop with one primary goal in mind...that customers left the place with that “I’ll be back” feeling. Example #3: I take our 7 y.o. Pug, Watson to a local groomer. He NEEDS a major de-thatching and nail grind spa thing on occasion. If you’ve ever had a Pug, you’d know. Anyway...the place (Bratdogz) is owned and run by a real firecracker. I love taking Watson down there and instead if her $35 fee I write the check for $40 because she’s worth it. Well...enough of that. Slow morning here. Sorry to rant.
 
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