Taste testing

SIR – Aubrey Watson (Letters, March 25) notices that people who vape like to compare flavours, and asks whether this happened with cigarettes.

Maybe not – but when pipe-smoking was popular, it was common practice. Unfortunately, these days I know no other pipe-smokers. David Salter Richmond, Surrey

SIR – When I smoked, it was quite usual in some circles for half a dozen packets of cigarettes of various brands and strengths to be strewn over a table. Comparisons would be made, sometimes in detail, as a civilised counterpoint to the flow of drinks.

Vaping has an aesthetic of its own. Whether or not Marlene Dietrich would have indulged, I am glad that devotees of the practice find it a talking point and a linchpin of companionship. Neil Sewell-Rutter Oxford