Pipe Bowl Materials

Pipe bowl materials refers to all the natural and man-made materials that form the chamber in which tobacco burns. Many materials have been tried over the centuries, and since the mid-19th century briar has by far been accepted as the standard. This entry compares the main materials against common criteria; the detail on each material is found in its own entry.

What's Expected of a Good Bowl

A good bowl material is expected to meet three basic criteria: heat resistance to withstand the temperature of the ember, porosity to absorb the moisture and tar produced during a smoke, and neutrality that doesn't spoil the tobacco's flavor. Weight, resistance to drops and impacts, and workability are also added to these. Briar's dominance rests on meeting all three basic criteria at reasonable cost: the burl's dense grain is extremely heat-resistant, absorbs moisture, and adds no noticeable flavor to the smoke.

A Brief History

From the late 16th century, when tobacco entered Europe, until the mid-19th century, fired white clay was the continent's near-universal bowl material; clay pipe was cheap and neutral in taste but broke easily and smoked hot. In the 18th and 19th centuries, meerschaum became the preferred choice of the upper classes for its lightness, porosity, and ease of carving. Briar, applied to pipes in France around the 1850s, wiped both clay and porcelain largely off the market within half a century. In the same period, on the other side of the Atlantic, the corncob carved out a permanent place for itself as a plain natural bowl material mass-produced in the United States since 1869.