|
NOTES:
In 2004 Teddy and a couple of other pipe-makers received gifts of
good-quality meerschaum blocks from pipe store owner Premal Chheda.
It's very difficult to export uncut meerschaum from Turkey and as a
result, few Danish pipe-carvers have ever used the material.
Teddy had not carved meerschaum before and he worked on his two
blocks over the course of five years, finally finishing them in time for
the Chicago show this year.
(Above)
Teddy studies the roughly cut blocks in the fall of 2004.
Turkish carvers keep their blocks wet when they carve. Teddy tried
that approach, but decided to use his knife on dry meerschaum.
The future "Snow-Conch"
Eventually, Teddy used a knife, a Dremmel and sandpaper on his two
meerschaum pipes. His stems were ebonite with Delron tenons.
He did not follow the usual Turkish procedure of lining the airholes with
Delron but he did apply boiling beeswax to the finished carvings. IS THERE A
TEDDY DIFFERENCE? I wondered how much a Teddy Meerschaum
would smoke like a Teddy Briar. Would the meerschaum affect the
taste and smokeability more than Teddy's engineering? Would I be
able to tell a difference between a Teddy meerschaum and a meerschaum made
by another European pipe-maker? (I a couple of old [Viennese]
Bauer pipes and a meerschaum
carved by Rainer Barbi that I used to smoke from time to time.)
It turns out the answers to these questions are not subtle.
Yes! A meerschaum Teddy smokes a
lot like a
briar Teddy. I find the smoke cooler and more tasty than any other
meerschaum pipe I've tried. The stem, of course, is far more
comfortable. The draw is recognizably "Teddy" (that is, it matches
my breathing habits perfectly). The taste is clearly
different from a briar pipe (I don't have the language yet to describe the
difference) ... but whereas I have tended to find the taste of other
meerschaum pipes rather unpleasant, Teddy's is enjoyable (though I still
prefer briar). The dominant characteristic of the Teddy
Meerschaum is its consistency. The
smoke is comfortable from start to finish. In other meerschaums
(even Rainer's), the smoke becomes hot or "dirty" or generally unpleasant
at some point as the tobacco is consumed. In recent years, on those
rare occasions when I've tried a meerschaum, I've usually not been able to
finish a full bowl. By contrast, Teddy's meerschaum has
entered my normal rotation of pipes (in part because both I and the
pipe-maker are curious to
see how the bowl will start coloring) and it provides a very pleasant
smoking experience. |
