|  |
| These questions are
inevitable, but they have no clear answers. The real producers and their
unofficial customers have absolutely no intention of letting the truth out. We
can, however, use our intuition: let's take a look at which countries produce
the greatest amounts of raw tobaccos. Which are the low-cost (and therefore,
more easily available) qualities? Which manufacturing companies have merged?
The truth is that there are very few companies left, and they produce all sorts
of blends. Every now and then chance incidents occur, which are even more
indicative of the change that many pipe aficionados have dejectedly noticed in
some classic mixtures. Not too long ago, a pipe smoker bought a few pouches of
Balkan Sobranie in a shop near Rome. When he opened them, and smoked their
contents, he was dumbfounded: it seemed to be Clan! I assure you that it is
true: the name, place and date of this misadventure are all available to those
who are interested. How can this be explained? It is simple: a major Dutch
producer that prepares a vast selection of well-known pipe tobaccos (the only
things that change are the names, and obviously the additives that are used) may
have made a mistake: a pouch with a prestigious, and more expensive, name may
have been packed with low quality tobacco. Some might say that it is only our
impression, but we are regularly informed of similar incidents by our readers
(and they are not naive pipe smokers...). As a matter of fact, if any of our
readers have witnessed anything analogous please write to us, we'll be happy to
publish it. We are talking, to be precise, not only of the Balkan Sobranie
blends, which reveal a suspicious mixture of "breeds" (nowadays all
problems have to be dealt with- sooner or later), but also all the other
mixtures which have held on to their name, but not to their quality. The price,
of course, remains high. This being the case, as the blends are made in a
uniform manner, and as our legs are being pulled, we are faced |
