How to smoke a pipe

Even though smoking a cigarette is a far more common practice these days than smoking a pipe, pipe smoking remains a craft with rules of its own. The art of pipe smoking begins with the one essential item: the pipe itself. A well-made pipe has a bearing on how the tobacco behaves. The price of a pipe varies threefold depending on the quality of the wood used, the know-how, the materials chosen, its shape and so on. All of these play a part in the aroma and the flavour of the tobacco. A pipe calls for attention and care, in the same measure as the care the pipe makers put into creating it.

In the art of pipe smoking, the pipe smoker generally owns a number of essential accessories: – a pipe rest – a pouch, snuffbox or tobacco jar – tobacco – preferably a gas lighter made for pipes, since petrol distorts the aroma of the tobacco, or simply matches – a tamper, with which the smoker fills the head of the pipe with tobacco and packs it down – a pipe scraper with which, once the smoke is over, the head of the pipe is gently scraped, taking care not to bite into the wood – bristle cleaners or pipe brushes, very useful for cleaning the stem of the pipe. The art of pipe smoking recommends these steps so as not to damage the pipe, allowing it to age well and to last.

The art of pipe smoking also lies in the smoker’s movements and mannerisms. The way the lips are twisted, the way the stem is taken like a fish taking a hook to get the tobacco to catch, drawing and blowing, sending the first puffs into the air through the chimney of a lower lip pushed to one side, and giving off that very particular smell of tobacco, a smell peculiar to the pipe smoker. The whole thing is a set of gestures and rituals repeated in the same order. One last point: the pipe smoker leaves behind only ash and shreds of tobacco, waste that does not harm the environment, which is not the case with cigarette filters.

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