Utterly a failed experiment.
It was unimaginably nasty.
A few years ago MacBaren mounted a two-pronged assault on the North American market. Untapped pipe-smokers, oh boy!
At the high end, stellar products under the HH line.
At the low end, the Seven Seas tobacco mixtures.
I did not realize quite how low they were aiming.
Just after finishing a splendid teatime repast at one of the cheap but stellar snack counters I favour in Chinatown, I lit up a bowlful of an aromatic pipe mixture from that estimable company. Yes, I gave it the old college try.
But holy crap! Whatever that sh*t is, it's vile!
The Danish foray into low-end American preference pipe tobaccos is quite possibly the worst comment on the average American smoker that can be imagined. After one quarter of a bowl I gave up. Emptied the soggy shreds into the gutter, and resolved never to venture down that path again.
I'm just glad nobody saw me. I must have looked green.
Green white men in Chinatown are sufficiently a rarity that comment would have been excited. Don't need that. Not after putrid dank fumes from a swamp infected with vanilla butterscotch pus.
My pins wobbled.
7 SEAS ROYAL BLEND, BY MAC BAREN
An aromatic mixture of Black Cavendish, Burley, and Virginia.
Whoever came up with this idea should be severely chastised. Draw blood, and please leave scars. Rancid butterscotch?!? Good frikkin' grief! Thank heavens it was a sample, just a small quantity of miserable pipeweed.
As a cheapskate penny-pinching Dutchman, it would have pained me to throw out more. Such a waste!
You Danes must be absolute spendthrifts.
And gamblers to boot.
I had in previous weeks actually ventured into headhunting heathen territory, by smoking several bowls of 1-Q, a modest little stinky whore by Lane Limited, which is one of the three most popular bulk-bag "house mixtures" in America. Mild, not objectionable, with a high level of honest satisfaction if you overlook the "bang-me-bubba" perfume. Along with BCA, and RLP6. Both of which are also unloathsome, if not actually to be taken seriously.
All three smoke moist, due to gloop.
That being a technical term.
Signifying 'gloop'.
Decent.
Seven Seas is not like that. It is quite disgusting.
And yes, it too is sodden with gloop.
I shall have nightmares.
Please note that whenever one smokes American-preference aromatics, it is advisable to nuke them six or seven times for eight second increments in the microwave to dry them out. Otherwise it's like handling soggy sphagnum. Because of the gloop.
Tea consisted of a steamed chicken bun, three little pork siu mai, and a jin deui, with a cup of coffee. Self-administered medical treatment following the experiment with the Danish daemon-weed was a hot cup of HK-style milk-tea and a 糯米紅豆沙燒餅 in a pleasant environment to calm my jangled nerves. Sometimes I am a very sensitive person.
A bowl filled with flake medallions after that.
A modest man of simple tastes.
臘味荳角煲仔
Dinner, which is on the stove now, will be a slow-simmered claypot dish consisting of yard-long beans ("kouseband") with fried tofu chunks, chilies, abalone sauce, preserved meat (臘肉), pinch of curry, pinch sugar, small dash sesame oil, chopped scallions, plus sautéed garlic and ginger.
It's a very simple preparation, which with minor modifications to render it quite tasteless, would appeal to Buddhists and vegetarians as well as many other Bay Area white people.
I'll probably smoke some Capstan before bed.
And stroll around the neighborhood.
I need to coddle myself.
TOBACCO INDEX
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1 comment:
Further development: Sweetness And Light.
It is still nasty.
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