Bought my first tin of tobacco today

... A mild tinned vanilla is not a bad start. Good choice for starting out. Try to stay away from over the counter commercial tobacco's and buy the tinned stuff. It will generally contain no presevatives and burn dry in your pipe. Plus, the tinned stuff is generally a higher grade of leaf and thus a bit more expensive but worth it. Enjoy it. You may wish to smoke aromatics for a while. Eventually, you will probably discover non-aromatics to suit you.

Have you visited this site: www.cornellanddiehl....? It is a wonderful place to spend hours looking over all their fine tobaccos. Aromatic and non-aromatic. Pure pleasure. And you can't go wrong smoking anything they offer, in my opinion. Experiment with tobacco and try different blends until you find what you really like.

Don't be in a hurry, it took me 39 years!

Yes, I remember mine well. It was a tin of Mac Baren Symphony in the eighties. Was not what I expected and I didn't care for it at all. I guess it was because I was used to smoking the store blends which were probably not the best tobaccos and I usually smoked stuff like Rum & Maple, Whiskey Whatever, Mango Hazelnut & Peach parfait - I am sure you get the picture.

Fortunately, some and even myself may think otherwise, today the wisdom of the ages has been scribed in cyber-script where the mindless masses of this planet may be spoon fed. The following spoonful is refered to as "Tobacco Touchstones". The link breaks the genre of tobaccos into their respective groups, followed with representative blends that many feel are fine examples of the genre. It was a valuable starting point for me as I was not even that familiar with the different tobacco groups. I hope you find it somewhat informative.

It is too bad that you do not have a "good" tobacconist nearby. When available they are a godsend to someone new with the pipe. We on this forum will do our best to compensate. Online purchasing is very common among all of us. Some very unfair punitive taxes are avoided and pipe tobacco selection is usually very broad from bulk to tinned.

One thing I would like to mention, a little advice, would be for you to try relative small samples from the different groups and try to become familiar with the groups. I did the same, found something good from each group and have amassed quite a hoard of tobacco from each. I think back and while I know I could have been more intelligent in my choices it could not have been more FUN. I have no serious regrets and more FUN will be had.

Also being familiar with the tobacco groups will help us to make better recommendations if we know what general group you favor.

Honestly, online is the way to go. For me, two etailers stand out: www.pipesandcigars.c... & www.smokingpipes.com. Prices are really good & the selection is superb (enjoy the confusion!). Samplers may be a good way to go. But you will be able to get the Tobacco of the Month from these guys. Finding out what you enjoy tobacco-wise is part of the journey. Enjoy it.

I'd recommend solani silver flake

perhaps a bit pricey, but damn, this is a good tobacco, even though it has become a bit to mild for me.

another good mild tobacco for a beginner might be Orlik Golden slice.

well, the golden sliced is good anyway, but I cannot realy recommend the ropes that I am currently smoking.

Tobacco shops in Oklahoma dont carry many tins they just dont sell well here

Online is your best bet

Any SG tins are great starters along with PS

both reasonably priced as well as being good

Dunhill was one of the first tins I bought

for me to break down and buy online. I used to be able to get a fair amount of OTC's locally but even those are getting hard to come by now.
I think my first tin was Old Belt by W.O. Larsen...I was amazed at how real tobacco tasted!

was Erinmore Flake. The nicotine level was so far above what I was used to the it got me totally shit-faced drunk. LOL. My first success was Samuel Gawith's Best Brown Flake - and I still love it today.

Patrick,

I hope you're enjoying every gram of the tobacco you got. I also started out with, among others, a vanilla blend. In my case it was Mac Baren Vanilla Cream ( http://www.mac-baren... ). I think you might enjoy that one quite a bit. It will give you the vanilla flavor as well as allow the natural taste of tobacco to come through. To this day, I still steal a few moments with this blend even though I generally avoid aromatics now.

Why move away from aromatics? No reason, other than your personal preferences. But if you're looking for the intricacies of the tobacco flavors, a journey into blends like Mac Baren Navy Flake, Orlik Golden Sliced, Mac Baren Virginia #1, Peter Stokkebye Luxury Navy Flake, Peter Stokkebye Bull's Eye Flake, Rattray's Red Rapparee, Rattray's Old Gowrie and many others, you'll soon find yourself in the same position as most of the rest of MPC - looking for that one elusive super blend that pushes all your buttons like no aromatic tobacco can.

We can certainly give you a lot of recommendations on tobaccos, but in the end your own experiments will win the gold - that's the beauty of pipedom.

Don't worry about the number of pipes you own. As long as you're sticking to some similarly tasting blends, you'll be just fine. If/When you decide to explore a bit more, it will help a lot to have more pipes so not to mix Vanilla aromatics with say, natural burley blends. It will be like eating taters'n'gravy with a drizzle of vanilla instead of yummy bacon bits :)

As far as online ordering goes, depending on what state you're in here's a few I like:

4noggins.com
smokingpipes.com
cupojoes.com
pipesandcigars.com

Hope that helps - and keep puffin' :)

Edit: Also don't be afraid to try out some of the stronger stuff right away. Most of the blends people smoke on the regular will, at best, give you the hiccups (nicotine triggers it).