Tasting Pipe Tobaccos: Should We Become More Disciplined About This?

"Tasting Pipe Tobaccos: Should we Become more Disciplined about this?" is an essay debating whether pipe tobacco tasting could acquire a shared method and vocabulary the way wine tasting has. The essay argues, by listing the factors that make this validity difficult, that evaluating pipe tobacco involves far more variables than one might assume.

Author and Publication Context

The essay's author, Fred J. Hanna, is an academic whose primary field of expertise is psychological counseling and psychotherapy. By his own account, he worked in the wine industry for many years, ran numerous blind tastings, and published a bulletin containing tasting notes; he grounds his writing on pipes in this same experience. The community's honorary title "Doctor of Pipes" was awarded to him in 2010. This title has been presented to two people each year since 1998 at the international pipe show in Chicago, with candidates determined by the vote of previous recipients. His essay collection The Perfect Smoke was published by NASPC Press; he is also cited as a co-designer of certain blends prepared for McClelland.

The text was first published in The Pipe Collector, the bimonthly bulletin of the North American Society of Pipe Collectors. The club, headquartered in Columbus, was founded in 1993 under the name Ohio Pipe Collectors; among its founders was writer Regis McCafferty. As membership extended beyond state borders, the organization took its current name, and the bulletin also began appearing under the title The Pipe Collector starting in March 1997. The general framework of club tradition is covered in the history of pipe clubs entry.