I'm a 25 year old student and have been pipe smoking since 2007 (17 years old). Very sporadically the first 5-6 years, one pack at a time and almost only the aromatic "Indian Summer". Since 2013 I've been smoking and experimenting much more.

It took me a while to find out I really liked Latakia. And that I like mostly heavy tobacco blends and blends with a strong taste, no bland tasting tobacco blends.

My tips to beginning smokers on this website is not necessarily to try out "famous" blends, but to buy blending tobacco of each kind. That's one of the best ways to discover what tobacco you like most (this doesn't work for aromatics obviously, which are flavoured not by tobacco kinds but by any desired flavour, chocolate for instance, is no tobacco type...). If you're a beginning pipe smoker and you buy any kind of blend, you won't really have an idea of what you're actually tasting. But by buying them separately you can do that much better.

It's also difficult to go by ratings on this website to choose a good tobacco to buy. Ratings show which tobacco's a large group of people like. But your own taste and the way you experience a tobacco may differ. A good method to use this site is to read reviews on tobacco's you own and know. And then search for the people who experience them the same way you do. Then you know that those people have a similar taste as you, and based on their reviews you can choose new tobacco blends.

Those are some tips I use 😉