There are a lot of thick books written about
pipe tobaccos, their various types and blends

Tobacco growing at Peloponnesos, Greece

One of the basic skills of a novice is to be able to differentiate between the three main blend types. The English blends (often also called "mixtures") normally include no artificial additives. Usually they contain as a vital ingredient strong and smoky Latakia coming originally from Syria For a novice starting his adventure with pipes it still today is common to tell about some old myth about Latakia, namely that it gets its personal taste from camel dung. Tobacco is supposed to dry hanging on rafters inside of primitive buildings heated by burning camel dung in a stove.

Normally at least Virginia and/or Burley, perhaps also some Oriental tobacco are with in the English blends. Often but not always the English blends also contain a very strong, peppery tobacco called Perique. It is only grown in certain restricted areas of Louisiana. Actually Perique is not a a special species of Nicotiana like Burley or Virginia but an old method of fermentation. The process is very arduous. Tobacco is put many times under a high pressure that makes it ferment in its own juices. Gradually and arduously out of this comes a very special tasting, strong and spicy tobacco, added carefully in some blends. Perique gives the typical flavour and bite to many of those mixtures, called English. It might be added that the well-known Tabasco also comes from Louisiana. In fact, there indeed exists certain similarity with Perique and Tabasco. The second of the main types of blends is called Aromatic. By adding some natural or artificial flavours in the blend we can get often especially for a non-smoker deliciously smelling tobacco. Usual additives are e.g. vanilla, chocolate, various berries, fruits or nuts, rhums. whiskies, liqueurs, etc. Often the tobaccos in the group of aromatics are specially fermented using a process called Cavendish A certain weakness is usual with these aromatic blends, namely they do not smoke as dry as the English. They may make pipe wet leaving certain gunk in them. One cannot smoke a pipe to the bottom so that only dry ashes were left after smoking a bowl. Instead of dry ashes out comes a wet dottle perhaps even a cm or more high in the shape of the bottom part of the bowl. Virginia blends can become added as the third main type among pipe tobaccos. Usually there are many different types of Virginias, even as many as nine of them in a blend. Often also Perique is included in a lesser amount. Virginia blends are usually pressed and sold in flakes. They age very well and thus it is wise to buy them more at a time and stash for later use. You must puff these SLOWLY not to get tongue burn, but if and when you learn this you'll most probably never leave them. Personally I prefer the English blends, but can also sometimes for a change smoke e.g. some very carefully with vanilla flavoured, still dry burning Cavendish tobacco. During the last years I have begun to appreciate the Virginia blends. Especially those from J.F. Germain. I get my tobaccos mainly from the U.S.A, Cornell & Diehl.The president of C & D, Craig Tarler is a real wizard to make new blends as well as clones of many well-known English mixtures. Furthermore he uses no extra chemicals in his products. It is sad that in many so-called drugstore blends made by big producers and sold worldwide are added e.g. propylene glycol to increase their storing time and get them burning better. The art of pipe smoking is not among the easiest and thus it will never grow as popular as cigars, not to mention cigarettes. There's a FAQ about how to smoke a pipe at "Pipe Smokers' WWW-page"

My favourites among Cornell&Diehl blends

Favourite blends from the world

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