It is a Cavendish mixture containing both domestic and imported leaf with a hint of almond flavor. It has a great aroma and smokes easily, burning down to the bottom of the bowl. In 2016, FDA finalized a rule extending our regulatory authority to cover all tobacco products, including pipe tobacco. FDA regulates the manufacture, import, packaging, labeling, advertising, promotion, sale, and distribution of pipe tobacco. This includes components and parts such as pipes, but excludes accessories such as lighters. Despite the name, Virginias are grown in numerous locales.
You can imagine that this was both inconsistent and had varying results! Fortunately, technology has caught up to make it more science than art. However, this does come with a major caveat in which vaporizers bongs pipe tobacco should in no circumstances share a humidor with cigars. As pipe tobacco and cigars are both quite aromatic in different ways, their flavours will certainly marry over a period of time.
While I smoke many other more complex blends, whenever I just want a simple, basic no-nonsense smoke, this is the blend I choose. It doesn’t require any thinking, burns cool, slow and smooth. I’ve had the best experience finding it at tobaccostore.com and at a good price.
People exposed to secondhand pipe smoke should also be concerned, as pipe smoke is no less toxic than cigarette smoke, reported the Harvard Health Letter in 1998. Smoke from pipes can also cause respiratory infections, headaches, and burning eyes. A popular gourmet tobacco in the pipe smoker’s world is Virginia leaf, also known as bright or brightleaf. This is tobacco that has been flue-cured—rapidly dried in a flue-curing barn at high temperature, in a week to 10 days, in clean air heated by a furnace. Flue-cured tobacco is called Virginia for historical reasons, but it is called Virginia no matter where it is produced. This has been my “go to” tobacco blend since I started smoking pipes in 1955.
There are several varieties of Virginias, but all are characterized a relatively high sugar content. Virginias are often used as the base tobacco in blends, but they are smoked “straight” as well. Straight Virginias undergo changes in flavor as they age, similar to fine wines. Lighter in body than Oriental blends, they have a subtle complexity of flavor that makes them a favorite of many experienced smokers. “You sip it as a connoisseur.” His magazine also recommends that pipe smokers do not inhale.
Tobacco is very much like wine in that there are so many varieties available, and no two from the same tobacco type will taste the same. If you try one Latakia, it might be entirely different from the next. The best way to find the tobacco that you enjoy best is to simply try as many as possible and keep notes of what you liked and disliked about each blend.