YOUR EXCESS WEATHER

A friend in Germany is currently suffering through a heat wave (36°C or 96°F), whereas another person says that where he is (England), it's raining cats and dogs. These are not mutually exclusive conditions.
They are both speaking in centigrade.
Very well then.

A number of people on that forum are tea drinkers.
All of them smoke a pipe.

I mention these facts merely for colour.
Pipe smoking is normal.
Rain isn't.

Here in SF it's 19 degrees, elsewhere in the Bay Area low to mid twenties. On the other hand, in Hong Kong where A.F. lives, and also in the American deep south (yes, there ARE pipesmokers there), it is heading into the thirties. Bangalore is twenty five degrees, Amritsar  twenty eight.
In all those places a soothing bowl of a medium flake is the proper response to excess weather.

Except for the rain, Yorkshire is rather like San Francisco.


A SOOTHING BOWL OF MEDIUM FLAKE

You can imagine my surprise to find that many people are convinced that there is chocolate in Greg Pease's latest release.
As their reviews make plain.

I shall quote selectively, because they are idiots.

" The cocoa is not all that mild. In fact it obscures a lot of the Virginia taste "

" The cocoa topping is lightly applied -- the cocoa is a little more more obvious "

" I find the effect of the cocoa flavoring to be a detractor "

" Wonderful chocolate floral hay "

" A rich chocolate nose "

Gentlemen, what the blazes are you smoking?!? The only worthwhile statement that you coconuts made was the zen-like phrase "drying it tempers the geranium". Indeed. Temper your damned geraniums!

[Photo ripped from here: Another Run -- Cornell and Diehl ]

After reading that nonsense yesterday, I had five people and a cigarette smoker smell the freshly opened tin. Not a single person even considered chocolate, except for the cigarette smoker, because I mentioned chocolate when asking her to take a whiff. Which is the power of suggestion. If I say "it reeks of a Parisian bordello in here", many people will automatically remember the last time they visited a Parisian bordello, and agree.

Mentioning it makes the nose recollect.


STONEHENGE FLAKE

I do not smell chocolate in this tobacco. And I know chocolate. If you do, maybe there is something wrong with your nose. Is there an ugly growth? Have it checked out.

That is not to say that there is no chocolate. The tobacco industry does use various fragrances and flavourings to emphasize certain characteristics that leaves have, but what they were probably smelling was the minor addition of Burley, which can be chocolatish. But it does not reek of chocolate.
Or Geraniums. Or a Parisian bordello.

"This traditional, no-nonsense blend combines bright flue-cured and sun-cured leaf from Brazil, Zimbabwe, and Malawi with just a touch of Burley and a good bit of Perique for added body and spice. After blending all those quality components together, the mixture is steamed and hot-pressed into blocks and allowed to mature."


This is a very subtle product; even the Perique seems to have been applied with a delicate hand. And it is very enjoyable. Usually I do not stay with the same tobacco three tins in a row, but I suspect that I will have to acquire more of this to smoke, as well as augment the stockpile.


The other two tobaccos that I am smoking right now are Samuel Gawith's St. James Flake, which has considerably more Perique, and one of my own mostly Virginia concoctions, with somewhat more Burley.

My geraniums are very nicely tempered.

TOBACCO INDEX


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