Pressed Tobaccos and the Concept of the Flake Pipe

Pressed tobaccos is the shared name for the forms obtained by holding leaf under pressure and molding it over a long period. Flake, plug, navy cut, rope, and coin are members of this family; a detailed breakdown of the forms can be found in the tobacco cuts entry. They differ from loose ribbon cuts in two respects: they hold more moisture in their structure and burn distinctly slower. These two properties have over time raised the question "which pipe?", giving rise to a description in the community known as the flake pipe.

What Pressing Does to Tobacco

Pressing is not done merely to give shape. Air pockets in the compressed mass close, and a limited fermentation begins. The result is chemical: in a blend that has undergone long pressing, the aromas of the leaves merge into one another, and the individual varieties become harder to distinguish.

The most extreme example of this principle is Perique tobacco. According to records, in the method developed in 1824 in Louisiana by Pierre Chenet, leaves are packed into hickory whiskey barrels and left under pressure; the pressure is released once a month, the tobacco is manually aired out and repressed, and maturation takes a year.

Pressed tobacco also has a branch with roots in seafaring. According to lore, the name navy cut arose from sailors' habit of binding leaves tightly with string and cutting off a slice from the end as needed; John Player & Sons began using this name as a trademark in 1883. Kendal, in England, is considered the center of pressed-tobacco tradition: snuff production in the town dates back to 1792, and Samuel Gawith & Co. is said to still operate a machine built in the 1750s.

Before Entering the Bowl

Pressed tobacco enters a pipe by several routes: it is rubbed between the fingers (rub out), broken into two or three pieces, cut into small pieces with scissors, or folded and placed whole into the bowl. A comparison of these methods is covered in the pipe packing methods entry. A well rubbed-out flake resembles a ribbon cut in appearance; even so, it retains a higher moisture content, and packing and lighting habits change as well. This is why the pressed and unpressed forms of the same Virginia blend smoke like two different tobaccos.

Choosing a Pipe

With a slow-burning, moist tobacco, bowl size is considered decisive. As the bowl grows larger, a single packing lasts longer; the tobacco at the bottom is exposed for that much longer to the heat and moisture descending from above, which is considered to leave its taste vulnerable to spoiling. For this reason, medium and small pipes are favored for pressed tobaccos; the size debate is covered in the pipe bowl size entry. Smokers writing on the subject find a bowl diameter of 19-22 millimeters suitable; when this range is clearly exceeded, the ember at the center is reported to be insufficient to light the tobacco at the bowl's edge.

In terms of shape, billiard and its close relatives (Lovat, Canadian, Liverpool) are preferred. The reason is the bowl's cross-section: a bowl standing fairly upright, whose diameter does not vary much along its depth, helps the ember front advance evenly in a pressed tobacco that is already hard to keep lit. Lightly conical bowls and apple, bulldog, rhodesian, dublin, and a moderately sized pot serve the same purpose. By contrast, shapes with a noticeably forward-leaning bowl (zulu, horn, oom paul) and stack shapes with a long narrow chimney are considered more troublesome with pressed tobacco.

The Origin of the Term

The naming "flake pipe" is relatively recent. According to sources, the term was given in the 2000s as the name for a small-sized series made for Italian master Claudio Cavicchi, and spread from there; Cavicchi has been making pipes near Bologna since 1974. Many people, including those who coined the term, point out that pressed shapes are not made up of flake alone, and note that "pressed tobacco pipe" would be the more accurate name.