The other night I went out to the Jakarta Pipe Club meeting. It’s been a few years since I’ve hung out with those guys, and there seems to have been a bit of a generational change. The last time I went, it was much more like regular scruffy dudes who smoked pipes. Now it seems to be very much a hipster thing. I must admit, for the first half hour or so, I wasn’t really into the new vibe, but I ended up having a few good chats with different people. Anyway, here are some images: 
Thanks for the pictures, look like a good bunch of folk. Are you in any of the group shots? Interesting that so many of the people wear hats and suspenders, not that common where I live.
@Mouse, nope, I’m not in them. My roots are Anglo and Central Europe, so you’d notice me in that crowd. Like I said, there’s a strong hipster vibe to the club these days, which might explain the hats and suspenders. I think there was some kind of dress up theme, but even so. But it was a fun night. Also, good pipe tobacco is available in Jakarta at a reasonable price, but only through a kind of gray market that relies a lot on social media. Good to actually meet people I’ve traded with. I’ve tried to turn some of them onto snuff. Some of them like it, but it weirded a lot of them out. No prior knowledge of it whatsoever. In the remote islands, women chew, but that’s the closest to it.
Looks like a good time. Doesn’t look too smoky with all the pipers in one room. I may have to search for a pipe club. I hear they have buying power.And I am always interested in quality tobaccos.
Thanks for sharing the photos, it looks like all were having a great time !
It seems like a great bunch of friendly fellows! And if you ask me, it looks quite less elitist than most of the cigar clubs we have around in Spain (there are lots, but most of them require quite a high membership fee with so few actual benefits, which is a big letdown to many of us non-richs among tobacco lovers). Hope you have some luck turning them into snuff lovers!
@MarvinLapsus, no, it’s pretty non-elitist. There’s a group of guys who are doing pretty well who buy good pipes, but there are also a whole bunch of students who trawl the second hand markets for estate pipes or lurk on eBayfor bbargains. They all seem to get on fine, no-one looks down on the younger members. I think you find the elitist mentality over at the cigar clubs, which are often linked to the high end retailers. Their events can be fun, too, but completely different atmosphere.
Hey @JakartaBoy those are some great photos. Thank you. It looks like a good club and a good bunch of guys. Overall and generally speaking, what kind of tobacco seems to be their preference? Aromatics, English, Balkan, Virginias, VaPers, Burleys? You mentioned that some high quality tobaccos are available in Indonesia. Can I ask which ones? I could not help but notice how young those guys in the photos are. I have found that with the younger guys here in the USA, those with a limited income don’t spend much on pipes but are very interested in the high quality tobaccos. Is it like that in Indonesia as well or is a different situation entirely? I remember back around 15 years ago, us “old-timers” often sat around wondering when our pipe hobby would die. Many of us predicted 25 years. We would go to the pipe shows (in Chicago, Newark, Richmond, Columbus) and see mostly gray haired old dudes and very few younger guys (in their 20s or early 30s) back then. Thank heaven that we were wrong about the prediction. Now, who knows where the hobby is heading. Now it appears that there is a small resurgence of interest in pipes and tobaccos and younger guys are getting into pipes. And yes, some of it is a hipster thing, but mostly not, at least from what I have seen and heard. My friends who own tobacco shops (here in the USA) also tell me that the younger guys are really getting interested in pipes. You might want to look into getting samples of tobaccos for your meetings. Some pipe tobacco companies provide that sort of thing. Thanks again.
@fredh, up until some time in the 1990’s, you could still get three or four commercial, locally produced pipe tobaccos here, licensed under some Dutch brand whose name escapes me (EDIT: Amphora). It was mainly a habit of a small group of older men, usually “priyayi”, who are the old, aristocratic, Dutch-educated elite of the colonial period (so, mostly dead by now). As this group faded, demand died down and pipe tobacco became practically unavailable, except a few crappy brands at wildly inflated prices. But there were a few enthusiasts who kept the flame burning, importing through the mail and so on. A guy called Patrick was one of these. He was a third generation tobacconist in a small provincial town, with a shop that specialized in local tobaccos for RYO. There’s quite a strong RYO tradition here, with many different blends prepared at home or small scale, often with spices and flavourings added, via the kretek influence. Somehow, Patrick came to the pipe, and he devoted his considerable creative talents to formulating pipe blends and to promoting pipe smoking. There may have been a few other guys getting into it at the same time, I don’t know. But he was quite a promoter. It became a bit of a niche thing, mostly students, some academics, a few musicians, actors and so on. But it’s spread a bit further than that by now. So, I don’t know how to describe the local tobaccos, I’m not sure what category they fall into. I’ll dig up a link to Patrick’s website, he lists them all, although the descriptions are in Indonesian. Patrick says at first the market was into strongly aromatic tobaccos, but he promoted natural tobaccos and they seem to have become regarded as a sign of good taste. Now, a lot of the guys like imports. You don’t often see the common drug store blends here, except Captain Black. It’s a mixture of Dunhill, some CnD, Frog Morton and more from whoever makes that, and a few others. Regarding pipes, some of the better off guys take pride in the Dunhills and Altinok meerschaum and so on, but that’s a pretty small sub-set. Patrick makes pipes out of briar and a few others, although I honestly have to say I have some differences of opinion with him on the issue. I think he makes the draw way too tight. The younger guys without so much cash buy his or scrounge on the net (some very sharp sniping on pipes no-one else noticed!) at eBay and so on. EDIT: Was looking for the link to the site with the local tobaccos, but he seems to have moved it to Facebook. I honestly wouldn’t recommend trying to place an overseas order anyway, I don’t think he’s ready for it yet.
Here’s a link to a Facebook pages with lots of images of the local Indonesian tobaccos.And here’s a link to an interesting discussion on some pipe club thread.
Enjoyed the pics and I have no affilation to pipes whatsoever. Jakarta seems exotic, well definitley is compared to this backwater but I think I’m somewhat introverted so probably stuck here. I do like to travel by looking at least. You got a kind of sepia effect with your white balance and it goes well with the retro type scene. Photography is fun when there is something to photograph and you seem to have the fast lens gear to deal with indoors well. I also notice from one of the pictures that some-one else is out with a camera as they are all looking away from you but you still got a very nice shot. Wouldn’t have been surprised if Humphrey Bogart had wondered into shot.
@I_snuff_therefore___, thanks. Yes, I’ve got some good kit and I shoot with available light and a fast lens. Also, always with RAW format. Amazing what you can do post these days. I’m not a well trained or naturally brilliant photographer, but I do often have to take photos for work, so it’s a bit more than a casual hobby.