Aside from the obvious disclaimer to make up front (my company imports meerschaum pipes and accessories from Turkey so you might think me biased), I would like to sing the praise of Meerschaum as a material for tobacco pipes.
I feel that a finely crafted piece of meerschaum stone can be the best possible material to use for fine tobacco pipes for any number of reasons. Below, you'll find a list of them (in no particular order):
- Meerschaum is lighter than briar in most cases. The nature of this particular material is that it is particularly light when compared to most stones or minerals after the water has been removed from it.
- Meerschaum is porous and acts as a filter, drawing tars and moisture out of the smoke before it reaches your mouth.
- Meerschaum is neutral and imparts no flavor to the tobacco like a briar pipe will. This allows you to get the true flavor of the particular blend you are smoking.
- Meerschaum will not burn like briar. Since you cannot catch a meerschaum pipe on fire, there is no need to build a cake of carbon around the bowl to protect it.
- You can safely smoke any number of different types of tobaccos (aromatics, English, Virginia, burley, etc) back to back without fear of muddling the cake with different flavors/aromas like you do with a briar pipe since you don't need a cake. I can safely smoke a bowl of Stokkebye's Luxury Bullseye Flake and a bowl of Cambridge back to back without having the aroma/flavor from one affect the other.
- You don't need to rest a Meerschaum Pipe between smokes. Because the stone absorbs and gives off liquid much quicker than briar and it also cools quicker, you don't need to let your pipe rest after smoking it. This means that you will need to keep fewer pipes in your quiver and you can still smoke as much as you'd like.
- Meerschaum gives you a cooler smoking experience. Because Meerschaum is a much better conduit for heat than briar (which actually is more of an insulator than conductor of heat), the heat drawn off the smoke contributes to a cooler smoke.
Anyone else have any reasons why they smoke Meerschaum pipes? If so, please send us a comment using the links below...