Arno’s.. Ehrr.. Olaf’s Favourite English

IMG_9993When I first contacted master-blender Hans Wiedemann from HU Tobacco at the beginning of 2012 I asked him if it was possible to receive some samples of his blends. From fellow Dutch pipe-smokers forum members Smoking Rob and Huub I had heard and read some positive things about Hans’ mixtures, so I was very curious. I mainly ordered samples from latakia blends. All blends were good but there were 2 “touchdowns”. One of them was Balkan Passion and the other one Olaf’s Favourite English. It was made by Hans for pipe artist Olaf Langner, who prefers solid English mixtures for his smoking den. That sounds just like my cup of (lapsang souchong) tea!

IMG_9997Package: Olaf’s is only available in typical German 100 gram “paint” tins. This because of the lid which resembles that of a paint tin. Ideal if you ask me, because it keeps the tobacco fresh for a long time. I opened my tin half a year ago (I have more tins open and I only smoke 2 pipes a day) and the little tobacco left inside is still as moist as the moment I first popped the lid. On the front is a nice drawing of Olaf and the name of the blend, on the backside a description of the contents. Inside on top of the tobacco is a paper insert with an illustration of a compass on it. The sign the mixture inside was blended and tinned by DTM.

IMG_9998Contents/composition: A sweet base of Virginias, 40% Syrian latakia, 10% Cyprian latakia, perique, quite a bit of Smyrna oriental, darkfired leaf and English black cavendish. Whooo Arno.. In your blog-post Syrian latakia you said that there is almost nothing left of that dark leaf! That is true and despite the contents description there is no Syrian latakia in Olaf’s. I smoked the mixture a couple of times and could not detect the Syrian leaf I know from blends like 3 Oaks Syrian and Wilderness. So I mailed Hans about this and asked if he could verify the use of Syrian latakia. A couple of e-mails further I read that DTM reluctantly acknowledged  there was no Syrian dark leaf inside Olaf’s. So from now on 50% Cyprian latakia is used in the blend. Oh, don’t be afraid the taste has changed because of this. I smoked some of a new batch and it was the same as the old one.. The tobacco itself looks dark with some blond strands and is mainly a ribbon cut with some small chunky pieces which make for easy packing.

noseSmell from the tin: A classic latakia mixture smell arises from the opened tin. Sweet, bitter, sour, salty and smoky notes. However, between these I detect something I can’t really define, a bit mushroom like odour. The only blend in which I smelled this before was GL Pease Lagonda.

011Taste: With a lot of latakia mixtures there is a bitter taste at the charring light. Not with Olaf’s. The latakia makes itself known but does not overpower, it provides a kind of full roundness of taste together with the darkfired leaf in which the Virginias can develop. It is not a latakia-bomb. Halfway the bowl the sourness of the Smyrna takes the upper hand a bit which combines nicely with the underlying Virginias and latakia. I know there is perique in the mixture but I think I get more of the spicy pepper side of it than the fruity side. Although… At three quarters of the bowl the smoky and salty latakia is a bit tuned down by the black cavendish. What I then taste I can best describe as a bit salty liquorice with a honey-sweet edge. Maybe that is caused by the combination of the perique and the black cavendish. In the last bit of the bowl the flavours slowly starting to fade out similar to that of the fading sound a great musical piece and in the end a fine grey ash is left.

pipeCombustibility: Once lit the mixture keeps burning pretty easy with few relights. No comments here.

thumbsRoom-note: I don’t see my girlfriend Ellen hurrying out of the chamber or coughing violently while I smoke Olaf’s so I guess the room-note is acceptable for a latakia blend. She has smelled worse.

The evening ended on a cozy note...Miscellaneous: Olaf’s benefits from a longer shelving time so the flavours have more opportunity to meld together. Pretty necessary for a complex blend like this one. When I opened my tin it was tinned one year before and I found it good for consumption. However, I am very curious how the mixture will taste after a couple of years of peace in my tobacco closet. The nicotine level is medium, it really is a late night smoke in that regard. Maybe it fits together well with a glass of fine whisky or red wine. Also because of the complex character of the blend I would not advise to smoke it in the morning. One thing that sometimes bothers me a bit about Olaf’s is that now and then it has the tendency to bite in the first part of the bowl. From the other side it could have something to do with my body chemistry on some days.

moneyPrice: My tin was a bit cheaper but thanks to German tobacco-taxes one 100 gram tin of this wonderful mixture will now cost you €18,35 ($24.21) in Hans’ online shop.

IMG_0001Conclusion: From the first puffs I took from this excellent blend I fell in love with it. For me Olaf’s Favourite English delivers everything I expect from a wonderful English mixture; it is complex but without bragging about it. All the flavours from sweet to smoky to leathery to sour to salty weave throughout the smoke in perfect balance. Personally I think this is one of the best latakia blends on the mainland of Europe and it can easily compete with the finest offerings from blenders like GL Pease.

Awesome Austria

View from our Austrian house

View from our Austrian holiday-house on the Dachstein-plateau

Grüß Gott! After a relaxing two weeks I am back from holiday. Because my girlfriend Ellen and I have not been on vacation last year because of financial reasons we really wanted to go this year. But to where? At first I was thinking about the cottage in the south of France where I have been before. But actually I wanted to go to Austria, the country where I was conceived (my parents went their yeeaars ago and my mother came back pregnant).

Our holiday-house

Our holiday-house

So the search began but it was a lot harder than I thought. A wide range of holiday houses, yes, but all (far) above or below our budget with no shower, electricity etc. Eventually I gave up. After fruitless having browsed through a lot of websites France was once again a good option. A little after New Year the movie “The Sound of Music” just had been on TV and parts were filmed in the Salzkammergut region. I did one last search for a holiday house in that part of Austria and finally found a picturesque cottage outside the town of Bad Goisern! And it fit all the “requirements”: budget, remote location, quiet, traditional appearance, toilet, shower and hot water. Only thing: no internet .. Oh well, I like to read so with some books I was sure I could bide my time.

The pipes that made the trip

The pipes that made the trip

The evening before departure it was time to pack. Clothes and toiletries were sorted out quick enough, but pipes and tobacco… On my holiday to Belgium two years ago I took almost every pipe and tobacco with me that I owned back then. This year I gave it some thought. From what I could see the weather would be nice so the tobaccos I would be smoking the most would be Virginia’s, VaPers and aromatics. And perhaps some latakia in the late evening. In summertime my use of the dark leaf is very low. So some of the tobaccos I took with me were Capstan, Luxury Bullseye Flake, Germain Medium Flake, HU Tobacco Olaf’s Favourite English, My Own Blend Arno Mixture 665, Sweet Vanilla Honeydew and Planta’s Black Vanilla Mixture. A couple of months ago I bought some new corncobs at Aristocob with my vacation in the back of my mind. They smoke well, can take a beating, if one is broken or lost it isn’t a big deal. So, ideal. Further I brought along three of my favourite latakia pipes, two Dunhills and one old Peterson. Those pipes gave me a big scare by the way. When we left it was approximately 18°C in The Netherlands. When we arrived in Austria a heatwave just had begun. So the first days it was about 35°C! When I wanted to smoke one of the Dunhills late on the second day I saw to my horror that the pipe had begun to sweat. There was moisture on it and the black of the ebonite stem was fading. Both the Peterson and the other Dunhill had the same. Luckily I remembered that wood is subject to temperature changes. Travelling orchestras with wooden instruments often have difficulties to keep those in shape. The next evening the moisture was gone, the stems were black once again and they smoked great. I had no problems whatsoever with my corncobs.

Inside the holiday house

Inside our holiday-house

One of the advantages of the holiday-house was that indoor smoking was allowed. Well, actually I did not ask if I could light up a pipe inside but there very clearly was an ashtray on the table. Also the owner paid us a couple of short visits and he could not have missed pipes and tobacco lying around. He said nothing of it. Luckily Austria is a pretty tolerant country towards smoking. Where the rules in Germany recently have been tightened up (Grrr…) their Southern neighbour keep things pretty relaxed. Smoking is prohibited in all enclosed public spaces with certain exceptions for eating and drinking establishments. A law from January 2009 mandates that all restaurants, bars, discos, and pubs larger than 50 m² must either be non-smoking or introduce separate smoking rooms. Below 50 m² the owner has the option to make the establishment a smoking or non-smoking place. I really wished the Dutch government also opted for this, just let the owner decide. The Austrian smoking ban has been a subject of controversy. This because the rules are widely ignored by bar owners and are not actively enforced by the authorities (just as it is in The Netherlands).

Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth (Sissi)

Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth (Sissi)

In Bad Ischl Ellen and I went to the Kaiservilla, the summer residence of Emperor Franz Joseph I (of Sissi fame) which he described as “heaven on earth” for himself and his family. The Imperial Villa was also a stage on which the great powers of the 19th century carried out their diplomatic manoeuvrings. It was here, on July 28th 1914, that Franz Joseph signed the declaration of war on Serbia thus starting World War I and changing the world.. I looked at the desk in his office on which he wrote that ill-fated piece of paper and to my surprise I saw on the right something that looked like a small meerschaum pipe. It turned out to be a long cigar-holder because when the Emperor was working he did not like smoke in his eyes. Well, well, Franz Joseph smoked!

The Emperor's cigar holder

The Emperor’s cigar holder

Of all the monarchs of his time, Emperor Franz Joseph I was perhaps one of the most modest as far as his personal needs were concerned. His daily routine was strictly regulated (he got up every day at 3.30 AM!) and his private life was free from any extravagance apart from the occasional visit to the theatre and the pleasures of the hunt (you can see MANY stuffed animals in the Kaiservilla). He drank and ate only in strict moderation. Nevertheless, he did have one vice: smoking. One Ketterl, the emperor’s personal servant, reports this in his memoirs: “When the Emperor sat alone with Count Paar in the train compartment, intercourse between the two was limited to the creation of huge billows of smoke, with the result that emperor and general adjutant were hardly to be distinguished any longer in the thick fog of tobacco smoke”. Tobacco had already played an important role for the Austrian monarchs long before the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I. The first Habsburg to appreciate the financial advantages offered by tobacco was Leopold I. In 1670 he needed money in order to fund his expensive hunting excursions. Count Khevenhüller, his Grand Master of the Hunt, suggested leasing the monopoly for the cultivation and sale of tobacco to him to cover the imperial hunt expenses. From then on (whatever the personal preference was for tobacco of the individual rulers) the tobacco monopoly was placed under varying degrees of state control. Joseph II eventually decreed an exclusive state monopoly over tobacco production in 1784, thus founding the Austrian Tobacco Monopoly (Austria Tabak). But because of European Union requirements it was partially privatized in 1998. Austria Tabak was acquired by Gallaher, a member of the Japan Tobacco International family, in 2001.

A Tabak Trafik sign

A Tabak Trafik sign

In Austria you can buy tobacco in shops called “Tabak Trafik”. They are a point of sale for (of course) tobacco products, newspapers, magazines, stationery, postcards and other small goods. In Vienna, for example, these can be parking tickets and tickets for public transport. Only Tabak Trafik shops are allowed to sell tobacco products at the regular price. Only when there are not enough shops available in an area, other businesses get a sales permit. Since restaurants and gas stations refer to the Tabak Trafik prices, pubs are at least 10% more expensive. I visited every Tabak Trafik shop I could find in Bad Goisern and other nearby towns. And I found that their pipe tobacco assortment was somewhat.. Disappointing.. Maybe I am used to the well-stocked German tobacco-shops. Ok, it is wonderful that those little Austrian shops have pipe tobacco in the first place. But they only sell pouches from brands like MacBaren, Clan and WO Larsen and some shops carry some of the Dunhill tobacco tins. I could only find one positive exception in Bad Ischl. There was a Tabak Trafik which had some Wellauer Latakia and a couple of Rattray tins. I also saw a pouch of DTM’s Sweet Vanilla Honeydew. I never knew that was sold outside of the Danpipe store in Europe. Tobacco is pretty expensive in Austria, only just below the Dutch prices. As far as pipes goes I also grumbled somewhat. A couple of souvenir pipes and a few shops in Salzburg had some Vauen and Savinelli smoking gear. Also pretty expensive..

Souvenirs from Salzburg

Souvenirs from Salzburg

When Ellen and I were in the beautiful city of Salzburg we walked into a fantasy/souvenir shop. Besides cuckoo clocks, swords and tankards they also had some nice ashtrays. Since I have something with skulls I bought an ashtray with a skeleton inside. Smoking is lethal right? But I still wanted a pipe.. On the Mozartplatz there was a Tabak Trafik which had some souvenir pipes made by Salzburg-based company Kemperling. They all were (yes you guess it right) expensive and not really well made (some plastic pieces) so I picked the cheapest one. A nice looking pipe with an engraved Edelweiss flower and the word “Salzburg”. And I don’t know what got into me, I really must have been tired, but I forgot to haggle and paid the full price of €34 ($44). Waaaay too much for a pipe I could not even smoke. The stem was made of cheap plastic and the smoking channel.. Well.. The drilling was off and it was so narrow I could barely put a pipe cleaner through it.. But back home it looked nice in my pipe-cabinet! Really!

My girlfriend Ellen and I

My girlfriend Ellen and I

All in all the two-week holiday to Austria really had been a total blast. Apart from two days of rain Ellen and I had beautiful weather and we saw and did lots of things throughout the Salzkammergut area and a bit beyond. If you visit the region do not miss Salzburg, Bad Ischl and Hallstatt. If you travel a little further go to the Admont Abbey with its stunning library and take a day-trip to the awesome panoramic Grossglockner High Alpine Road. Auf Wiedersehen!

Interview with master-blender Hans Wiedemann from HU Tobacco – Part 1.

Hans Wiedemann

Hans Wiedemann

Once there was a time that I was petrified that my few “tobacco-lines” with the USA became distorted. How could I live my pipe-smoking life without excellent tobaccos like Abingdon, Lagonda, Westminster, Escudo, Balkan Supreme and many others? In The Netherlands there are few tobaccos of my liking. Then I got introduced by fellow Dutch/Belgian pipesmoker forum member “Smokin'” Rob to the tobaccos of German master-blender Hans Wiedemann from HU Tobacco. Hmzz… Those blends can never be as good as the ones from the States, I silently  thought. But being the curious fellow that I am I decided to ask Hans if he also sold samples of his mixtures. And he did. I smoked them and wowww… I could not believe how good they were! On par or even better than many tobaccos available in the USA. So I immediately ordered a bunch of tins and got into contact with Hans more and more. He is such a warm, friendly and modest guy with a big heart. That showed because after I thought the whole forum-tobacco quest ended he extended his helping hand and saved the entire project. Hans also was willing to answer questions for an interview for my blog. Here it is:

1How long have you been smoking pipe?
I have been smoking pipe since I was 15. Of course not as intensive as in later years. As a teenager you have other things on your mind and you often miss the moment of rest for the enjoyment. But since that time the pipe always accompanied me and it never lost its fascination for me. The nice thing about pipe smoking is simply the connection of a beautiful smoking device with a wide range of tobaccos with all kinds of tastes. A pipe which smokes excellent and also looks great is almost like a friend for life. This is one of the reasons why I stick to the pipe and prefer it over the cigar. All other enjoyments of smoke are too fast paced and a good cigar simply goes up in smoke, and provides no lasting value for the connoisseur.

Hans Wiedemann

What are your favourite pipe shapes and why?
Concerning pipe shapes I am more conservative then with my choice of tobaccos. I feel a connection with classic pipe shapes in which you can recognize the personal style of the maker. Revolutionary shapes, or in other words crazy, spectacular shapes are not my taste. The classic shapes have proven themselves particularly through their smoking properties and are still exciting for me. I take off my hat to every pipe maker who goes to the limits of a shape without blurring the original form. There the art lies in the details.
My favourite shapes since long are the Dublin, Pot, Bulldog, Prince and Cutty. These shapes are really created very differently. The pot and Bulldog are rather strong, burly pipe shapes while the Cutty, Dublin and Prince are sometimes interpreted as very delicate. I love the contrasts and depending on the mood of the day and the preference for a tobacco I choose a delicate or a more robust pipe. Classic does not have to be dusty, classic can still be very exciting.

Olaf's Favourite English

Olaf’s Favourite English

Do you have a favourite genre of tobacco that you like to smoke?
Of course I have certain tobacco genres which accompany me since long and to where I return again and again despite all kinds of sidesteps. My great loves are the Virginia / Perique blends and to-the-point English blends. I think this you can clearly see this in my supply of tobacco. Again and again I turn to the Burley-mixtures, but they can never conquer my heart forever. But these are always mixtures that excite me and therefore are a great change to my “favourites”.
I sometimes like to smoke aromatic tobaccos but my interpretation of the term aromatic is unlike most others. Aromatic tobaccos should assist only the tobacco taste with their casing, maybe put some little accents, but the tobacco base should never be “destroyed”. This is not a widely accepted view, but the interpretations of the aromatic tobaccos blended by me have a very loyal following. Perhaps this is because this niche is only partially covered by other manufacturers and it offers tobacco flavour nuances that heavy aromatized tobaccos  just do not offer these days.
But coming back to my personal passions, the Virginia / Perique and Latakia mixtures, is there anything more honest than the natural blends of these genres? Do you not find the ethereal taste of a good Latakia different every day? Do you not always taste nuances that you have never tasted before, or simply perceived differently? These aspects breathe the life in the enjoyment of pipe tobacco and that falls away when a tobacco is heavily aromatized.

Untitled-1How did you acquire all of your tobacco knowledge? In the early days internet was not there yet. Books?
Yes, with internet really a new era dawned and the ways that you can gather knowledge can be described as wonderful. But to the surprise of many, I am not a tobacco-guru. My modest knowledge of tobacco is not theoretical, but is a result of many conversations with experienced pipe smokers and the visits I undertook in the 90’s to Dan Tobacco. Of course, I devoured all the standard readings of pipe smoking. But like I said, in the smoking community by comparative tests and discussions you learn how oriental tobaccos taste or how the addition of burley affects a Latakia mixture. Those are practical things that one can only learn so far by pure theory.
And honestly it is more fun to gather your own experiences than googling for hours. Like I said, my focus is less on theoretical knowledge and more on “practical experience”.

Hans at the Lohmar Pipeshow

Hans at the Lohmar Pipeshow

Why did you started blending tobaccos? Were you for example unsatisfied with available mixtures?
Hmm…. That’s a long story. The basic idea was born at the Lohmar Pipeshow 2010. Along with Kelvin, name-giver of my tobacco “Kelvin’s Silent Secret“, the idea was born to try import interesting tobaccos from abroad. It always annoyed the both of us that mixtures from abroad cost a lot and were very hard to obtain. But after a little research I understood that it was not possible to realize this idea. To import tobaccos, apart from a desire to do a lot of paperwork,  you need a lot of money and a high level tolerance of risk. All this was not what I was looking for, after all it was supposed to be just a hobby. Besides my day job I also have a wife and 3 small children. So the idea came to create tobaccos according to my own visions and sell them through an online store. Since Kelvin was in a completely different phase of life than me and focused himself on starting a family, he let me go first, and concentrated on the pipe making. That way the idea was born, not knowing what was coming.

Some of the HU Tobacco mixtures

Some of the HU Tobacco mixtures

When you first started blending pipe tobacco blends, was it more of a hobby or did you already had plans to make it into a business?
As long as I can remember I was always searching for the best tobacco. Sometimes this was not always pleasant, because a certain restlessness is in it, but you also learn about an awful lot of different tobacco blends. I always had the desire to unite all the advantages of different tobacco species in a mixture. Ok, that is impossible, but this thought prompted me to create my own blends over and over again. So I have some experience with home-mixing before HU Tobacco. Many ended up in the garbage because they were not useful or simply not good enough to really have fun with. But over time by adding the right ingredients you get a feel for the direction in which a mixture is going to develop. So before before I decided the venture into the world of tobacco-mixing and present blends to the public, I had the phase of beginner-mistakes behind me.

Dockworker, a beautiful Burley / Oriental / Virginia flake

Dockworker, a beautiful Burley / Oriental / Virginia flake

Do you have a favourite type of tobacco when blending?
I can’t really say that. I have 2 to 3 great Virginias available to me that I really love working with and that I have often used lately. But this should not be the standard, otherwise the mixtures are simply becoming too similar. Yes I want to show the whole range of individual types of tobacco in my mixtures. Otherwise it would make no sense to offer several Virginia or Virginia / Perique blends. In my recent creations, I tried to put tobaccos in the foreground which lead a shadowy existence at the large manufacturers. Especially Kentucky, Burley and Oriental tobaccos. Because of this tobacco combinations came into existence that not or almost not existed in Europe to date. Burley / Orient, Orient / Kentucky, Burley / Perique to name just a few examples.
I would like to re-phrase the initial question: Are there tobacco genres you prefer to blend? The answer to this question would for me be an unmistakable yes. Latakia mixtures are the most exciting for me as a blender because this genre offers the biggest “playground”.

How did HU Tobacco came into existence?
How I came to the idea, I’ve already answered. But of course there still was a long way to go before the founding of HU Tobacco. I first had to find partners who were willing to manufacture my mixtures. Because my sales are ridiculous compared to the major manufacturers, I did not encounter mutual love everywhere.. Sometimes the targets had been set very high which of course brought many sleepless nights. Not knowing how everything was going to develop, I took a few risks and registered my company at the authorities.

This interview continues in part 2 and part3.

You can buy Hans’ excellent tobaccos here.