For the past few days, I have faithfully smoked the products of our first attempt at clove cigarettes. I have made myself into a guinea pig for you, fellow clove-lovers. Life and Limb have been placed ceremoniously upon the line, in the pursuit of life, liberty, and the perfection of clove-iness. It is with mixed emotions that I report that while life and limb remain intact, perfection is, as yet, out of reach.
All right, so I was pretty sure the first try wasn't going to be a complete success, but I had no idea it would be such an abysmal failure. Seriously, guys. This was not just a normal, everyday Fail. It was the oft-reported, seldom-true Epic Fail. I, personally, can blame no one but you, dear readers. Absolutely. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. No cake for you.
Let's go through and try to find where we went wrong, shall we?
The regular, unflavoured kreteks we made weren't bad, so long as you've the lung-power of a mountain-climbing blue whale. They draw like a pencil. Go, right this moment, to your desk, grab a pencil. #2 works best. Put the eraser end into your mouth, light the other end, and try to smoke it. Now you understand. I think this particular problem stems from both the type of tobacco, as well as the preparation of cloves we used. The tobacco -- Bali Golden Shag -- is tasty, sure, but too moist, especially when mixed with freshly ground cloves, which also are very moist. Not to mention, the name 'kretek' comes from the crackling sound the cloves make when they burn, but these cloves were too finely ground, damping the smoke, and also, not crackling. Other than that, though, the flavour itself was very pleasing. The clove element was very noticeable, and the Bali Golden Shag is an enjoyable smoke, so long as you can actually get it into your lungs. I rolled a few with a more loosely-packed mixture, thinking that perhaps the cigarettes were just too tight, but that was a bit of a disaster as well, since the paper burned more quickly than the tobacco/cloves filling, and the cherry just kept on falling off. Unsmokable.
The cigarettes with the flavoured papers rolled over the regular kreteks were even worse, if you'll believe it. The papers, being lightly sweetened with saccharine, did recreate the wonderful sweetness of a real clove. Alas, that was the only pro making a valiant stand against an onslaught of cons. Apart from being just as difficult to smoke as the aforementioned regular cloves (for the same reasons), the extra paper, being of the slightly flame-retardant kind, kept extinguishing the cigarettes as I took hyperventilation breaks from all the pulling I had to do to get even the smallest bit of nicotine. Not to mention, though the extra burning paper did give a slight cherry taste, it mostly produced a lot of harsh smoke. Again, unsmokable.
Both of these also gave me a highly unpleasant feeling of light-headedness. No, not the kind you'd get from illegal substances, the kind you get when you're not getting enough air. Thankfully, I am a very resourceful and clever young lady, and I have a few ideas for our next attempt. Too bad you'll just have to tune in next time to find out what they are. Muahahahaha!
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