There are worlds of difference between pipe tobaccos and that miserable abomination that is sold in mass-produced cigarettes. For example, one blend of pipe tobacco that I like is mostly bright virginia with a generous amount of long-cut perique, unflavored black cavendish, and air-cured ribbon.
Another blend is heavy on the latakia with a bit of oriental and perique to spice the note.
Then there is my currently favorite twist, which is mostly virginia with a bit of African and Turkish leaf for oomph.
Some pipe blends do have flavorings, often fruit extracts or vanilla in the USA, while flower extracts are used in Europe. Liquors are popular on both sides of the Atlantic. Some pipe tobaccos are smoked before blending. These are almost always used as “spice” tobaccos, deemed to strong to be the major constituent of a blend.
Cigar tobacco is again another world, stronger and more robust than pipe tobacco (even the mildest cigar tobaccos are rather strong), which makes sense, since the pipe concentrates and focuses the flavor to an intensity that would make cigar tobacco quite uncomfortable for most people.
Good cigars and good pipe tobacco brag about their quality, and charge accordingly. Serious pipesmokers think nothing of paying $10.00 (US) for a two-ounce (75g) tin, and that’s a bargain price for the good stuff. A good cigar begins at about $2.00 US each for a smaller one, and the really great ones can go for more than $20.00 each–and be worth it from the point of view of cigar lovers.
Mass-produced cigarettes, on the other hand, are not grown especially for high quality. They’re bred to produce a large profit margin on an item that has as small a per-unit price as possible. In addition, they have a bewildering variety of additives that are designed to make them burn evenly and fast. Their target market is people who buy them by the carton, the case, and the truckload and want as many as possible as cheaply as possible. And then public establishments that permit smoking have the gall to turn around and prohibit fine pipes and cigars but allow those miserable, foul-smelling, low-bred, uncouth mockeries of the art of imbibing smoke.
And then those of us who insist on quality get swept up in public backlash against the cheap trash.