What Would You Like To See?

Hello,

One thing I would like to see is more browsing options. For example, a way to brows just the aromatic blends or English blends would be nice. Add to this a way to sort on several levels such as first by brand, then by reviewer, then by flavor, then by taste etc.

Another thing that would be nice to see but would be difficult to implement would be a way to categorize each tobacco by the type of tobacco that goes into the blend. This way if one is partial to Virgina or Latakia or Burley, or Perique they can view just these blends.

Finally more information about the availability of each blend would be nice. I see some reviewers mention that certain blends are unavailable in the US. It would be nice to know which ones are and are not available to different locations.

I am somewhat new to pipe smoking and love this website. I find myself reading the reviews for hours and making lists of tobaccos that I want to try. Anything that makes it easier to sort the reviews so I can read about specific blends to make it easier to decide what to try next would be nice.

Jon,

I, too, would like some kind of flag on blend availability: USA, Europe, World, Out-Of-Production . . .

Most of all, I’d like to read a blog about things that some pipe smokers just seem to know. The best example is some of the Dunhill blends disappearing starting about two years ago. I managed to score a few tins of Durbar, but I wish I had known about it sooner.

I live in the boondocks, I don’t get into a Brick & Mortar very often, I belong to one pipe smoking e-mail list, and (probably most importantly), I don’t get to go to any of the pipe smoking conventions. Thus I don’t get the “lowdown” until about a year later.

I’m really interested in company news. The loss of production of some of the Dunhill blends and which blends they were. The loss of that large batch of Syrian Latakia which meant the loss of some of those Pease and Cornell & Diehl blends. That sort of thing. I would like to know when some company sells out to another or when a company shifts production from (say for example) England to Germany.

I would gladly read about the introduction of new blends, too. None of this needs to be too wordy, just informative. I would be willing to respond, but I can’t originate information that I don’t have.

I would like to see a list of pipe-maker links sorted by most recent to most established. It would be good for those artisans just starting out.

I’d like to second what Doug said. All good ideas, I think.

Unlike Doug, I don’t live in the boondocks, but I find it difficult to find halfway decent brick and mortar shops that have more than a handful of blends.

I travel for business a few times a year and would find a user contributed and reviewed list of pipe oriented (or at least friendly) smoke shops very handy to have.

What would I like to see posted here?
Hmmm…the more I think about it, the more I feel like many bases are already covered by other sites in the area of blogs and conversations. Greg Pease has a blog, theres ASP, Smokers Forum, Yahoo Pipe group, even Christian Pipe Smokers.
It would be nice to have news from the ‘inside’ of the pipe world; P&T Magazine has good articles but I certainly wish someone would have warned me before several blends were discontinued in the past. So far, whatever is posted here, I will read, because I check tobaccoreviews.com almost as much as I check my email and love it and am addicted to it.

The suggestions from others aoveabove for the site itself all sound pretty good.

Here’s a thought, how about making it so I can edit my comments here. I like to limit my public stupidity, but sometimes it gets out. My above ending should be “above” not “aoveabove” or whatever keys I mashed with these stubby digits. =P

I would like to here more about the tobacco blenders as well as the pipe makers on how they go about makeing there respected wheres.

Yes, to everything that Doug mentioned.

Unless I’ve missed it, there is currently no “breaking news”/industry information-oriented site for avid consumers interested in what’s happening in the pipe/tobacco world. That would be a wonderful resource.

I’ll second Brent’s original post: I’d really like to see the ability to sort by tobacco style or “genre”. In other words, I’d like to be able to search for the family of Burleys, or Virginias, or Balkan blends (realizing that such categorization is occasionally difficult or subjective).

The current “Find Similar” search feature suggests a VERY wide assortment of styles when queried. For instance, using the “Find Similar” search feature on Uhle’s Perfection Plug Burley (a 100% straight Burley) yields 378 tobaccos that include not only pure Burleys, but VAs and heavy latakia English blends presumeably because each of the 378 tobaccos includes a Burley among the “Contents” list.

Accomplishing this is probably a programmer’s (or Webmaster’s) nightmare, but it would be powerfully helpful in organizing our tasting explorations.

Thanks for all your hard work on this site. It’s fabulous!

@Doug, Rober, et al: Fantastic idea! I love the idea of a industry news portal/blog/whatever. Let me gather my thoughts on it and I’ll start a new post to discuss just this idea.

@Steve:

Yep, the “find similiar” is broken. I am looking at ways to fix it, but nothing is concrete yet. Perhaps the “similarity” could be based on how many of the “contents” match the blend you start with, so that if you looked for similiar blends to something that had only one content tobacco, each additional content would be a negative match…

I think, like several of the others before have stated, that keeping on top of what the various companies are putting out and are about to start and/or stop producing would be a great help. Also, this may be the same vein, but I agree with Robert, et al. above here in getting a “breaking news” type thing going.

Hi, Jon, I think the idea of an industry news blog is great. As far as the site itself, count me in on those who would love to be able choose a particular type of blend to browse, even if it’s only ‘Aromatic’ and ‘Non-Aromatic’.

The thing I’d most like to see would be improved matching on search results when searching by blend contents. Here’s an example: If you browse by blend to Balkan Sasieni, you’ll see that it lists Virginia, Latakia, and Oriental in the contents. But if you go to the advanced search page and select Virginia, Latakia, and Oriental in the contents box, then hit the search button, you get 52 results and Balkan Sasieni is not among them, nor is Charing Cross, or Odyssey, or, presumably, many other blends that should show up.

One of my pet peeves on tobaccoreviews is seeing a review that says: “I only smoke aromatics and I hate Latakia of any kind but I thought I would try this balkan…and it sucks!” Seeing a review like this does not tell me what the blend is like, it just tells me that this reviewer hates Latakia (or whatever type of blend mentioned). When I read and write reviews, I want to know what to expect should I try the blend. I want to know about the flavors and smoking quality.

I think it would be useful to have reviewer profiles availble for all to see. Have the profiles include the types of blends the reviwer likes, dislikes, etc. Even if it is a simple “checkbox” of blend genres. I cannot take a review of an aromatic blend seriously if the reviewer openly hates all aromatics, etc.

I like Jimmy’s idea about reviewer profiles. I think that this would help judge how a reviewer rates the blends. I disagree with the idea that people who dislike (for example) aromatics shouldn’t review aromatics. If everyone only reviewed what he really likes, what’s the point?

That being said, if I know that a given reviewer really doesn’t like aromatics and he gives a particular aromatic blend a 1-star, I’ll take it with a grain of salt. However, if the same reviewer rates a aromatic 3 or 4-stars, that really says something!

To try and communicate something along these lines, here’s how I intend to preface every one of my reviews: (With a “profile” section, I wouldn’t need to do this . . .)

“This is a “blue-collar” review from a long-time pipe smoker who is neither a connoisseur nor a gourmet. I like subtleties up to a point, beyond which I cannot detect them. There are very few aromatics that I like anymore. I love orientals, latakias, and Virginias, but burley gives me some trouble. Most of the time, I like stronger blends over weaker ones and in larger pipes than smaller ones. I have exceptions to all of the above. With that said . . . ”

– Doug Pearson

Steve and Brent have covered my main desire; to be able to browse by type of blend, i.e., Virginia, English, Balkan, Va/Per, etc.
Also helpful would be to grade each type by strength, although this of course is subjective. But some guidance here would be helpful, especially to new smokers or those desiring to try a new type of blend without being shocked.

Leroy

Although I think you were asking the question ‘What would you [we] like to see’ in the Blog, I’ve got a suggestion for the site…..

Is there a way you can make it possible to update a review without changing the original post date of the review? Knowing the original review date is useful.

And another for the site…what about Pipe reviews? You could use the same system. Just change the categories. Strength to Smokability,
change Room note to ‘Fit and Finish’, flavoring to ’style’ I dunno exactly the best way, but a place to find out what other people think about the pipes the like (Or dislike) would be a great resource. (Especially for pipe carver!)
-loose

Oh, sorry. That post above should read….Knowing the original review date is useful, I’m just too lazy to write it in when I update a review.

-loose

I like the suggestion on being able to browse according to blends. Also might do a guide to the characteristics and tastes of various leafs just to get an idea when someone can not detect the full blend. Might be interesting also to know the percentages of each leaf put into a blend which can gauge what a person likes about the blend. It is a good website though and please keep up the good work. Very helpful.

I think it would be really helpful to have some way of sending private messages (PM) through the site, much like some forums. Being able to send messages to people that have similar tastes and getting to discuss tobaccos with folks from all over would be a fun way of stimulating more interest. Obviously there should be a way to limit these messages if people don’t want to participate, also.

I comb through the reviews here hoping to find intelligent, perceptive appreciations. I.e., those written by people who tell me what’s “in it” for me to find. The signal-to-noise ratio of reviews written by folks who don’t grok that it takes time to get to know a blend, that a pipeweed can clash with the residue of what’s been been previously smoked in the pipe used, that some pipes just don’t like certain blends or genres, that hot &/or wet smoking is generally a matter of packing and smoking technique, and that tobaccos change character with age can be pretty high, and it reaches the height of uselessness with “reviews” like “This has Perique in it. I hate Perique so this sucks” and “I smoked this for two minutes and I hate it.”

If people don’t like something and (consequently) don’t “get it,” why fill space with reviews that don’t accomplish much more than demonstrating that this (rather than the tobacco they’re describing) is their real problem ?

I would keep the one-star reviews, but quarantine them so they don’t unfairly skew the ratings.

Forthat matter, a little intro pointing out the common pitfalls reviewers face (above) might help raise the standard (?)

This is a relatively minor concern, but it would also be nice if the site remembered whether you were browsing by brand or by blend. The way it’s set up now, if you go into “browse by brand,” then into G, then select Gawith Hoggarth, then select Dark Birdseye, the breadcrumb trail at the top of the page automatically switches to alpha by blend > D. I’m not sure what the logic behind that is.

All these reviews fall under Relative Value Scale,i.e. these are considered opinions by, hopefully, experienced pipe smokers. As in any other opinion, consider the source.
The reviewer profile is an invaluable aid in cuing the reader to find resonance. This coupled with a ‘genre’ heading would help firter to narrow a find.
I have spent way too $ buying tobacco only to find we were speaking different taste languages. There are sooo many confounding factors in relaying these reviews it is amazing that there is any consensus at all, but there is.
In the end, revier profile perhaps by genre as well and further overlay by genre overall would be my ‘pipedream’.
Additionally I would love to buy 1 oz samples (with a minimum?) of new releases from a single outlet without having to pay an arm and a leg for shipping.
In the past I have given away literally box loads of tins etc to The Ephemeris rather than dump ‘em. I have never succeded in trading pages.