Smoking a pipe for over 30 years. I tend toward English blends. I'm learning to appreciate Virginias. I suspect most of the flowery language describing the subtleties of tobacco in the reviews is BS. Maybe I just burned out my taster after 30 years. I have a rotation of about a dozen pipes, nothing very fancy but most are very functional and good smokes. Life is too short to smoke a bad pipe. Life is too fun to be a snob about it.