Veteran pipe smokers who have explored most of the commercially available products eventually reach the point where they want to try their hand at creating their own custom blend. By this point, they know what they like and don't like and have determined that blending pipe tobacco is not necessarily the rocket science equivalent they once believed it to be. But is that true? Is creating a unique tobacco blend as simple as buying briar pipes from Paykoc Pipes? Well… yes and no.

Creating a Tobacco Blend is Simple, Except it Isn't

Tobacco blending is a simple concept. You don't need to have spent years in the industry to understand that blending simply means combining different types of tobacco to create a new (and hopefully satisfying) tobacco experience. In that sense, anyone can do it. The hard part is the part in parentheses. The "satisfying" part.

Simply combining different tobaccos willy-nilly and seeing what happens is unlikely to ever produce a unique tobacco blend worth writing home about. In order to do that you need to know something about the tobaccos you're blending. It's not unlike painting.

If they hope to create a work that will draw viewers in, the artist needs to understand the color value and temperature. They need to understand complimentary colors and how to deploy them and they need to know which colors to blend to produce the color they need. The same can be said for blending tobacco. If you combine tobacco randomly the odds you will produce something worth loading into tobacco pipes are slim at best.

Getting to Know the Different Tobaccos

Let's start by taking a quick look at the various characteristics of common pipe tobaccos.

Burley

Burley is an oily tobacco that is known for its earthy, nutty, and sometimes spicy notes. Burley tobacco ranks among the most popular tobacco blends. As a general rule, the darker the Burley tobacco being used the fuller the flavor. Burley produces a fairly cool smoke and because of how well it blends with other tobaccos Burley is often used as the foundation upon which modern aromatic blends are built.

Latakia

Latakia is a smoked tobacco with a distinctive outdoorsy aroma that evokes evenings beside the campfire. The flavor of Latakia has broad-based appeal and its tendency to smoke cool only adds to its widespread popularity. If you are looking to cool down your blend while at the same time ramping up the flavor characteristics Latakia is often a good choice.

Orientals

If you plan on adding Orientals to your blend you will need to do your homework. That's because tobaccos that fall under the heading "Oriental" can vary considerably in flavor and aroma. Some have a full, musky character, while others are light and sweet. There are nearly four dozen Oriental tobaccos and developing an appreciation for all of them is going to take time.

Perique

Genuine Perique is unique to St. James Parish, Louisiana. But because of production limitations combined with the outsized demand for this versatile and cool tobacco, other producers have stepped in with their own take on Perique based on a particular strain of Burley. True Perique is pressed and then fermented for a year. It has a dark brown color with plum and pepper overtones. The biggest reason it winds up in so many blends is because of its ability to change in subtle ways as it reacts to other tobaccos.

Virginia

It's almost a certainty that you've stuffed some Virginia into your meerschaum pipes at one time or another without necessarily being aware of it. It's that common. But why? Well because it adds sweet, citrusy overtones to a blend. So use Virginia tobacco when you want your blend to have a kind of sweet and sour balance. But be aware that it tends to burn fairly hot.

Knowing what you now know, use the following as a rough guide when creating your own tobacco blend.

• English blend: Latakia and Virginias will be prominent. For an American English blend consider adding some Burley.
• Balkan blend: A Balkan blend will have a spicy taste most often created by adding Perique and Latakia to a base of high-quality Virginia tobacco.
• Burley blend: The majority of the blend will be Burleys complemented with small quantities of other tobaccos just to push the Burley in one direction or another.
• Virginia blend: Again, the dominant component will be the namesake tobacco. Add spicy tobacco in small quantities and perhaps add some Perique as a secondary note.
Keep in mind that a pipe tobacco's flavor goes beyond the blend itself. Review our team's earlier site content for techniques to enhance pipe tobacco's flavor.

Looking for Wholesale Tobacco Pipes? Trust Paykoc

Regardless of the blend you favor, you'll need quality tobacco pipes to enjoy it in. Check out Paykoc Pipes online shop for one of the widest selections of meerschaum and briar pipes you'll find anywhere as well as a huge selection of tobacco pipe accessories.