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OK, I have recently had an opportunity to observe numerous people buying cigarettes...
Now... from what I can tell, people have marked preferences for a particular brand..
Beyond the usual few times of trying cigarettes out as a teen, because they were against the rules, I have never been a smoker... not of tobacco anyway..

So, I ask: is there actually a difference between all of those brands? To me, being a non-smoker who has mild asthma, they all smell the same... which is to say acrid and extremely unpleasant.

Just curious

I stopped smoking 18 months ago, although when I visit friends up in London I have occasionally indulged in, erm, herbal tobacco

When I di smoke 'baccy, I rolled my own, did so from my early twenties through to the end. Tailor made cigarettes are just too acrid and contain too much sulpher or whatever it is they put in them to keep them burning.

There is a difference between brands of rolling tobacco for sure. The darker ones I really don't like (that would be Old Holborn in the UK), and of course it vries from nation to nation too. For some reason the Dutch have a preference for shredded 100 year old carpets, preferably it seems ones that have been used in pubs urinals for at least twenty years!

dragon wench wrote:OK, I have recently had an opportunity to observe numerous people buying cigarettes...
Now... from what I can tell, people have marked preferences for a particular brand..
Beyond the usual few times of trying cigarettes out as a teen, because they were against the rules, I have never been a smoker... not of tobacco anyway..

So, I ask: is there actually a difference between all of those brands? To me, being a non-smoker who has mild asthma, they all smell the same... which is to say acrid and extremely unpleasant.

Just curious

As a ex-smoker I think I'm qualified to answer this.
Yes, there are differences, and even huge ones. And the differences aren't limited to the actual taste only.
I used to smoke light green LM. That was the one for me, though if that specific brand and color wasn't available, I didn't have any problems to smoke others, to some extent. For example, LM gave you far better taste than let's say green Kent, which hardly tasted anything. Red LM is far lighter in terms of taste than red Marlboro. Not sure what actually causes the huge difference, probably the difference in actual tobacco, but the difference is clearly there.

Oh, and I agree with galraen about the difference between nations. Blue LM bought here in Finland tastes different than for example blue LM bought from Russian.

Maybe it's just me, but outside of price and brand names, I've never really noticed that much difference between cigarettes. One or two brands I've come across were really bad, but for the most part, so long as it isn't menthol, my usual route for buying smokes consists of "What's the cheapest brand they have?"

Speaking as an ex-smoker (I smoked from age 18 to age 28) I'm surprised any smoker can actually 'taste' anything unless it's overpowering! The inside of the mouth and the taste buds, and the aroma sensors, are overlaid with a film of smoke-related reisidues that it can take a few weeks to clear away completely when you stop smoking.
My son only recently gave up smoking, too, and he could never smell things my nose is sensitive to, and he put so much seasoning into his food it overpowering to my palate.

But flavours of cigarettes... yes. Strong or weak, sweet or bitter, harsh or smooth. That's about it, apart from Balkan Sobrani and other such cigarettes designed to taste like sweet cigars.