Quote:
Originally Posted by dls
I'm now looking into buying my own meerschaum. My question is this, if meerschaum imparts no flavor of its own, and smokes cooler than briar (this may just be my fault), why does briar seem to be the overwhelming choice of serious pipe smokers?
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DISCLAIMER: We are an importer of meerschaum pipes from Turkey so I may be biased /DISCLAIMER
As someone else mentioned, the subjective nature makes answering the question different for every person. We have a retail store that carries over 200 briar pipes in addition to our meerschaum pipes and I have 3 briar pipes to my two meerschaums, but I truly do prefer the meerschaums.
The reasoning behind my choice is that:
- I can taste the true flavor of the tobacco, not the tobacco as influenced by the briar the pipe was constructed of
- I like the cooler smoke offered by the meerschaum
- I don't have to let the pipe rest between bowls
- Since there is no caking necessary, I can switch between tobaccos as my mood dictates with no worry about "polluting the cake"
The downside, to me, is that I have to be more careful with my meerschaums.
I think that part of the perception that "Briar Is Better" comes not just from the unwillingness to change by many pipe smokers but I think it is a remnant from the middle of last century when advertising dollars really pushed briar as the pipe of choice. You saw them in movies, in pictures, on newsreels and in ads. Meerschaum, being such a small part of the market, never really got the same type of push.
Anyway, just my $.02 worth. I too would be interested in hearing from others about the reasons behind their preference for briar.