Yuwei: Sandblasted Cobra Tobacco Pipe

Yuwei Huang is a Taiwanese artisan whose work follows in the traditions of both the Danish and Japanese schools of design, crafting pieces with both impeccable attention to detail and a keen eye for organicism. The Cobra is a shape whose history is a bit nebulous, though it was likely originally crafted by legendary Swedish artisan Bo Nordh. A challenging shape to carve, the Cobra is defined by its broad fore, a shaping feature reminiscent of the Elephant's Foot, though it's crafted with additional curvature and a more pronounced curling look that calls to mind a cobra poised to strike at prey. This interpretation from Yuwei is a unique one, being much more low-slung than many other takes on the Cobra we've encountered before, and it boasts an extremely complex array of ridges that wrap around its form.

The shank and bowl are remarkably tight-knit here, compressing the stummel significantly and centering the visual weight not on a specific portion of said stummel, but on the entire body of the briar. As such, the transition here is exceptionally tight, and it gives way to a flicking, swiftly upwept shank that flares out swiftly toward its end, where a ridge arcs from the left flank, crests over the top, and comes to rest on the right. The left side of the shank is shaped in a blunted point formed by the aforementioned arcing ridge and its pairing to another pair of lines, with one short ridge bridging the gap between it and a fluid, curved line that sweeps across the top surface of the shank and dissipates at the transition. The broad face of the shank boasts a delightful asymmetry, with a good deal of lift through the left side and a soft dome at its face that's been inlaid with a ring of brass to form a sturdy push-mount for a sleek saddle stem rendered from an eye-catching style of vulcanite: showcasing a sandy base color that's striated with inky blacks and deep reds. From either side of the shank end, another pair of ridges flow forward, following the lower lines of the shank before lifting sharply into the fore wall of the bowl and rising to the start of the rim. At the aft side of the rim, the briar is shaped with plump contours, though at the fore, the ridges lining the bowl reach a tertiary ridge that crests from one end of the rim to the other and defines its broad, semi-paneled appearance. The left side of the bowl's fore boasts a subtle shaping detail that I really appreciate, as Yuwei has carved a shallow channel right at the edge of the ridge, extending it across the entire underside and expanding it as it nears the shank end: creating an extremely sharp edge and magnifying the captivating organicism that this pipe readily displays. Dressed in an inky sandblast, the stummel here showcases a rippling, arcing pattern of growth rings that radiate out from the middle of the stummel and flow over both the shank and the bowl, all while the stem offers striking contrast.