Coloring a meerschaum pipe

You bought a meerschaum pipe, and it is certain to make a choice, whether to smoke it for the pleasure it can give, or to smoke it also for the joy of seeing it color and go through an almost infinite range of shades and hues. Approximately with these words began the chapter dedicated to meerschaum pipes in my little manual on the art and pleasure of pipe smoking. And it is a decision not easy to make because the pleasure of smoking meerschaum is certainly heightened and made more subtle by the visual joy of its gradual coloring. But in this intimate joy, there is a hidden pitfall well expressed by Verdaguer: translating from the English text, more concise and advantageous than the German one: "Look at your pipe: now it's as white as milk. But in a few days, it will have taken on a cream shade, in a few months it will be blonde, and perhaps, in two or three years, a brownish hue. You will then have certainly become fervent admirers of your meerschaum, you will make it the object of your dreams, you will show it to your friends to provoke their envy... Vanity of vanities! You take it out of its case and contemplate it ecstatically. You smoke it as if performing a mystical rite. Fine. But do not forget that meerschaum, fragile as clay, may slip from your hand one day and shatter into a thousand pieces. And too often this sad end is the reward for all your devotion. But it is not enough: no longer free of yourself, depersonalized almost, you draw puffs from your pipe not so much to gratify yourself as to make the beloved object assume all the tints and shades, from ivory white to radiant ochre".

That is, by succumbing to the flattery of meerschaum, the smoker loses or risks losing part of his personality and his disinterested pleasure. In fact, color, as such, has no influence on the goodness of the pipe or the tobacco, except the natural one that derives from the maturation of this as of any other pipe. The coloring is, if anything, an aesthetic pleasure, superficial if we want, which takes away in serenity what it offers in vanity.

Yet, when one buys a meerschaum pipe, after hearing so much about it and desiring it so much, one sets out determined to achieve the famous coloring, sacrificing the pleasure of smoking in itself and for oneself to the subtle anguish that pervades us when we see that things are not going as we hoped and the long-awaited coloring takes on, more than anything else, the appearance of stains and spots not always pleasant.

This bitter disappointment stems from not having applied a small secret that we will reveal later.

So, whoever wants to smoke meerschaum just to enjoy sensations, if not more ethereal and suggestive, different from those ensured by briar, will have to use it like all other pipes, only doubling and tripling precautions, given the delicacy and fragility of the material. That is, they will prudently load the bowl to a third and then half, until they fill it completely after thirty or forty smokes. The pressure, both with the finger during loading and with the tamper during smoking, should be rather light, and the aspirations, especially during ignition, gentle, so to speak more spiritual than material. The pipe will gradually form, coating the inner walls of the bowl with an appropriate "cake," and will give great satisfaction to the owner, even if the coloring will leave something to be desired.

Those, on the other hand, who want to smoke the meerschaum pipe and, at the same time, color it, will have to adhere to a completely different technique.

But why and how does a meerschaum pipe color? This brief theoretical "excursus" will facilitate the understanding of the practice.

As the reader knows, sea foam is an extremely porous material. When the pipe bowl is ready and finished, it is immersed in a bath of boiling beeswax: the wax closes the pores, gives a pleasant patina and a pleasant tactility to the bowl, and, above all, retains, conducts, and distributes the color of the tobacco juices that gradually "accumulate" and darken the walls of the bowl and stem.

This is the general principle. But another clarification is needed, and it was made with such synthetic clarity by Ramazzotti, that it is worth quoting his words directly, taken from "Introduction to Pipe Smoking": "The darkening of the meerschaum occurs only in the colder parts, where precisely the distilled products of tobacco condense: thus it happens that the bowl, heated by the glowing embers, remains white, while the stem and the base of the bowl darken".

From these words, it is easy to deduce how to load and smoke a meerschaum pipe: exactly the opposite of how one loads and smokes a briar pipe. That is, the bowl will be fully loaded from the first time, but only a small part of the tobacco will be smoked and consumed, extremely gently and slowly, until less than a quarter of the bowl's height: and this precisely to leave the bowl and the stem as cold as possible. One will insist until the upper part of the bowl has begun to change color, assuming a pinkish hue: only then will one proceed by very small degrees until burning the contents of the bowl completely.

If the pipe is made of genuine meerschaum, this system is the only one, as far as I know, that allows for at least good chances of obtaining a complete and harmonious browning of the entire head. The journey has begun, but patience and perseverance will be required for as long as necessary, perhaps for years. All the more so since whoever owns meerschaum undoubtedly has many briar pipes and will use them more frequently because they are equally satisfying and practical, robust, and universal. Nor should it be forgotten that meerschaum is, by its nature, a "home" object, particularly suitable for the night: therefore, it will hardly be smoked more than once a day and certainly not every day of the week.

In this regard, it is appropriate to make an observation: the smoker, resuming, after a few days of interval, a meerschaum pipe already turning towards pink, may find it, with surprise and disappointment, slightly faded. Do not worry, smoke it, and you will see that, as Parini sang: "The rose that languished just before will flourish again and rest softly on the lilies of yore". Never would the good abbot, certainly more devoted to snuff tobacco than smoking, have suspected of enunciating a truth so valid for meerschaum pipes! Because we have, albeit briefly, touched on the subject of human fragility and transience, the question arises spontaneously: how long can a meerschaum pipe last? We know that briar can survive and outlive its owner: I myself own a pipe, inherited from an unknown ancestor of my wife, which I think boasts at least eighty springs: the only sign of old age, apart from the otherwise classic shape, is given by some wormholes in the horn mouthpiece. And even for meerschaum, we can reasonably be sure that its life exceeds that of a human, even if in continuous activity, barring unforeseen accidents. And in this regard, I

 would like to summarize here some rules regarding the handling of meerschaum pipes:

1. Never hold a meerschaum pipe by the head unless wearing soft, clean, white filo gloves, and even more so in the summer months when hands are inevitably damp with corrosive sweat. The meerschaum pipe, with bare hands, must be held by the stem, and even this is not entirely orthodox in the case of a precious material like amber.

2. Never place the just-smoked, and therefore still hot, pipe on a cold surface, such as marble: it could crack. The ideal is a satin cushion or even the padded box or lined case: however, the container must be left open for some time to prevent the pipe from suffocating.

3. Never store the pipe without first carefully emptying it of all combustion residues, especially if damp, and thoroughly cleaned according to the rules we will see later. This must also be said because there are those — heaven confound and forgive — who claim that the pipe quickly assumes its coloring if not cleaned after every smoke and immediately. The sensible reader will see for themselves how to dispense justice to such a wicked opinion.

4. Never store the meerschaum pipe in a pipe bag or cover its head with a cap, whatever material it is made of: the meerschaum pipe must be kept only in its original case.

5. Never smoke the meerschaum pipe in an environment where strong odors are present (this applies to all pipes, even for different reasons).

6. Never smoke different qualities of tobacco immediately or almost immediately in succession: the meerschaum pipe is very sensitive and would be disoriented. Indeed, on this point, since it is, as we have seen, an "impressionable" pipe, a study could be made on the qualities and types of tobacco that are best suited, smoked at suitable intervals, to give the meerschaum a particular and unique taste and personality.

7. Never store the pipe in a drawer or cupboard with strong odors, or where vapors and fumes, such as insecticides, camphor, and others, may enter.

8. Never smoke the meerschaum pipe outdoors (which is incorrect) or where there is a danger of strong drafts, rain, or snow: remember that the meerschaum pipe is made for the home. And do not consider it a social or evening pipe, and therefore suitable for attending theaters or social gatherings: for this, there are special briar pipes for evenings, black and flattened.

9. Never store or smoke the meerschaum pipe in a humid environment.

10. Never forget, above all, that the meerschaum pipe is, indeed, a meerschaum pipe.

The rules of this decalogue are strict: the reader can attenuate them if he wishes, but he must not deviate too much from them: only in this way will the white goddess accompany him, sophisticated and at the same time intimate, for years and years and will grant him, with her graces, hours of oblivion, contemplation, ineffable happiness. "Baldo Peroni"