732: Waqas The Dubai Piper. Ask the Blender with Jeremy Reeves.

Tonight on The Pipes Magazine Radio Show, our featured guest is Waqas, The Dubai Piper, joining us from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Waqas is a relatively new pipe smoker, having discovered the hobby at age 52, but he has quickly embraced the pipe-smoking community and built a collection of around 45 pipes. With no large pipe-smoking community immediately around him, much of his journey has taken place virtually through podcasts, videos, and social media. Waqas and Brian talk about what drew him to pipe smoking, his fascination with the 19th and early 20th centuries, and how he came to view the pipe as a kind of personal “time machine.” They also discuss his evolving tastes in pipes and tobacco, his efforts to create a Victorian-style smoking room at his home in Dubai, and the challenges of finding and ordering pipe tobacco in the United Arab Emirates. Waqas also shares his favorite pipe, and his current favorite tobaccos. At the top of the show, we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves, Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl.