Compare & Share October Reveal
Posted by Greg Rosenberg on 1st Nov 2023
Compare & Share November is now live!
Another fine month of mystery tobacco tasting! The pipe blends and cigars for October 2023?
Mystery Blend No 1 - Cornell & Diehl Autumn Evening
Mystery Blend No 2 - Sutliff 307 Mocha Strips
Mystery Cigar No 1 - Espinosa Laranja Azuelo Robusto
Mystery Cigar No 2 - ACE Prime Mas Igneus Toro
Thank you to all who participated! We would like to mention that in addition to our Facebook group where all are welcome to join to discuss the Mystery Blends, we will have a thread in the TobaccoReviews.com forum for each month. The format lends itself to discussion and we're glad it gives those who don't do social media a place to participate. Feel free to join us for the current Compare & Share and those to come!
Recent Compare & Share blends:
We’re very excited to announce a new offering here at TobaccoPipes.com that we hope you’ll take part in—Compare & Share. An opportunity to explore different blends, engage others in the hobby, and get a good deal all at once.
Here's How Compare & Share Works
At the beginning of each month, a listing will go up on TobaccoPipes.com for that month’s two Compare & Share Mystery Blends. For $7.99, you will receive 2 bags, each containing 1 ounce of each of these blends. Everyone will receive the same two tobaccos. They'll be packaged as bulk, but these could be any blend we offer, not limited to bulk mixtures. We won’t disclose what the Mystery Blends are until the end of the month, at which time we’ll post a reveal right before the next ones drop.
Our hope is that while trying these tobaccos, all who are taking part can discuss their thoughts, analyses, impressions, and whatever else on our social media pages. We’ll make an Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter post that will be dedicated comment threads for Compare & Share discussions.
We think this could be a fun way to bring together two tenets that—for many—are at the core of pipe smoking: exploration and community.
Exploring New Blends
In launching our Random Tobacco Tin listing, it became clear that the intrigue of a mystery blend could be part of the fun for many pipe smokers.
If you’re not familiar, when a tin gets dented or in some way blemished, we’ll move it out of inventory. Once these have accumulated enough, we’ll apply them to our Random Tobacco Tin listing—$4.99 for a tin of who knows what. We heard wonderful feedback on this. We all have our tastes and preferences; however, folks were not only willing to take the gamble for their mystery blend, the mystery was part of the fun too. You could get something you love, or something totally new to explore, and of course there’s the possibility you don’t get something that you’re interested in. But for such a bargain, it’s an exciting roll of the dice.
We knew we should look for more ways to engage this side of the hobby.
Embracing the Social Nature of the Pastime
Then there’s the community side of things. We wanted to think of a way that we could spur the social side of this great hobby.
Pipe and cigar smoking has such a strong and wide community, so much so that terms like “lifestyle” or “passion” may be more appropriate than hobby. But it’s that passion that is the strength of the community—in terms of numbers, we know pipe smoking is far from the ubiquity it once had. That’s what’s made the forums, YouTube Pipe Community, Facebook groups, and other such alternative avenues of engaging with fellow pipe smokers such a boon for this fraternity.
And as a tobacco online retailer, we place a high importance on any endeavor that can undermine the expectation of impersonalness that can be the rub of our modern, digital commerce. We think it crucial to explore more ways to fuel the kinship between folks far and wide who are bonded by a mutual affection for this tradition.
We Hope You Will Join Us
So, in the spirit of mystery, exploration, and community, we’re launching Compare & Share.