nicotiana

Flakes can be challenging. The usual advice of rubbing them out is horrible, since you miss out on the point of smoking flakes, but the flake fanatic mantra of “wad, twist, fill” works out okay for most. A forgotten detail might be remembering to squeeze that twisted wad to make it as dense as possible. You do not want to strangle it like a vanquished enemy, nor mash it into oblivion such that it falls apart, but hold it firmly and compact it. Then it should slide loosely into your pipe. This will be slightly harder to light, so grab those kitchen matches (the best fire for flakes), but it will burn nice and evenly and smolder long in the bowl for prolonged flavor.

Flakes provide a unique smoking experience in that they burn naturally like incense. Even ready-rubbed — partially rubbed out — does not have the same experience. An ideal bowl involves all the pieces of tobacco touching each other but leaving enough room for easy air passage but not too much air passage, lending itself to smolder like a log at the edge of a campfire. This way, the descending burn gives off a thick and flavorful smoke for the breath-smoker, exuding its scents and tastes slowly as the flame moves by the millimeter toward the bottom of the bowl.

It should surprise no one that experienced smokers warn off new smokers from the flake. First of all, lighting it takes the deft touch of flame, sometimes involving a gravity tamp after the first char to shove the tobacco back in place after it rises as it heats. Second, flake can be harder to keep going if you puff and gesture with the pipe. Finally, filling the pipe with flake presents a WTF to anyone familiar with ribbon cut tobacco, since the flake has to be molded into the shape of the bowl and kept loose; if packed too tightly, when the flake expands it cuts off air flow, leading to a wet bowl, tight draw, and miserable smoking experience.

Flake works best for people who smoke like those maniacs in slow smoke contests: they stick the pipe in their mouths, seal their lips around the stem, light it and then let it smolder with the rhythm of their breathing, resulting in a steady stream of tasty smoke and a constant low-temperature burn of the flake. We all know — probably now, certainly in older times — someone who loads up a pipe and mows the lawn, fixes the toilet, rewrites the device driver, or other labor without removing the pipe from their mouth. This is the ideal flake buyer.

For example, if you want to type out The Lord of the Rings you want a pipe that you do not need to fiddle with much but that burns for hours while you are busy crafting your masterpiece. This rewards a nice dense flake, since that will give off a steady stream of blue smoke that runs over your tongue and keeps your brain liquid and energetic as you lead Frodo through the valley of trolls. By lore, J.R.R. Tolkien smoked a Virginia flake, Capstan Blue, which like all Virginias requires a very slow smoking pace in order to avoid going up like an orphanage during a napalm strike, but delivers a fine sweet flavor through a gentle thin smoke.

If you want to enjoy this kind of experience, it makes sense to get your hands on a good flake — University Flake, Irish Flake, Dark Flake, or even 507-c will work if you do not want to shell out insane amounts for the cachet of Capstan — and then practice filling the bowl. Take a flake, bend it in half lengthwise, then roll that into a cylinder and give it a twist. But then, with some of the savagery that watching C-SPAN should give you, squeeze that little blighter pretty hard. Make all the parts touch each other and stick to each other, if you can. Then slide that into the pipe and give it more fire than you would a regular bowl, sit back and breathe with your pipe, and focus on rhythm.

Perhaps the first attempt at filling will turn out badly. Take the wad out and try again. This will not hurt it, although over time it has a tendency to separate with manhandling. It helps to keep the flake at roughly the moisture level at which it was shipped, since this maximizes flavorful steam and keeps the flake sticky so it will bind to itself. A few tries should get you to where you need to be, and then you can light up and head to the typewriter with a head full of dragons and orcs ready to be unleashed.