Came and Went

Yesterday was international pipe smoking day, and it was just over too fast. I smoked 3 different blends, in three different pipes, and all of them were ho-hum, at best. That's what I get for trying new things: joy mingled with disappointment. They were all house blends from pipesandcigars.com, under their house brand name: Hearth and Home. I've sampled some truly wonderful blends from them, and some that I didn't care for at all, but that's true of all tobacco companies. The three I tried yesterday fit into neither category.
  The first was called "LJ Heart Burley" a blend made specificly for pipe maker Lannes Johnson, who selected this mixture to send as a sample to his pipe customers. In their own words, it's "Two different types of nutty Burley are laced with an unusual cube cut Virginia and a Burley-based natural toasted Black Cavendish for a splash of non-flavored sweetness." In my words, it's a somewhat mild, extremely dry blend that produces a decent amount of smoke with very little flavor. I've smoke several bowls of this, as of this date, and my opinion hasn't changed. It's not BAD, per say, but not something I'll seek out to buy more of.
  The needs of family call, so I'm off, but hopefully I'll find time to send up the rest of my ho-humbug soon.

My new hero.

A recent experience with A website finally has me off my rear, and putting up a new post.
  I've ordered several times from pipesandcigars.com, without any issue. My most recent order arrived with two obviously different tobacco blends having the same label. A simple mistake that anyone could make. I knew what I ordered, and knew that one was a Virginia blend, and one a burley, but my nose just wasn't up to snuff to determine which was which. I decided to call customer service, and they handed the phone over to Russ Oullette, who blends Hearth and Home tobaccos. He quickly straightened me out with a simple description of what the burley blend looks like. Apparently, if there's a problem with one of his own blends, he just handles it himself!
  If you haven't tried Hearth & Home tobaccos, I strongly recommend it.I've sampled 9 of their blends so far, and I guess that I should start reviewing them soon, because they make almost everything I've written about so far pale in comparison. I've been finding more time to smoke my pipe lately, so there's really no reason to shy away from writing about it.  Just this morning I was smoking my first bowl of Hearth & Home "Old Companion", and loving every puff.
   I won't have time to write more for over a week, but more will be coming. I just wanted to take an opportunity to share my fantastic experience with pipesandcigars.com, and thank my new hero of blending AND customer service, Russ Oullette!