I've smoked alot of aromatics and I find a less hurried smoking style to be key or smoking them in a filtered pipe. Some blends are better than others though regarding heat and touguebite, Holger Danske Daily and Boswell's Best spring to mind. A lot of the Danish/German blends are really intended for the filtered pipes which are prevalent there.
I hate you're having trouble with the Da Vinci, it is one of my favorites, and I only smoke a couple of Aro's. I pretty much learned to smoke a pipe on this blend, so I agree that it may need a little drying, but not too much. I also learned the frank method of packing using this tobacco, and it helped a lot. With the constant relights, no flavor, and tongue bite, it sounds like you may be packing a bit light to me, maybe try a little more tamping a little more often? All in all, I hope you find the key to this blend, it's tasty and smells wonderful when it is behaving!
How do I smoke aro's? With great relish (on the side of course). Sorry, couldn't resist. I was turned off on Aros for the same reason as the OP when I first started smoking a pipe. Nothing I tried had any taste, and smoked too hot. Now I realize that I was not only smoking poor tobaccos, but I was new then and didn't realize how "dry" tobby needs to be in order to smoke well, or even that the dryness varies from one to the other. It wasn't until I joined this forum that I discovered that I really could smoke something other than "english" blends to get something I could taste. I'm currently on a VA kick, but I still smoke SWRA every day, and McB Vanilla Flake or PA Soft Vanilla are good choices as well for a start.
I avoid the aro's that have/leave a chemical taste. There are some really high quality aro's that actually use good or great leaf as the base, then a judicious splash of flavor added...sometimes, the flavor added accompanies the smoke to the end. Aro's i prefer: Peterson aro's, most of them SG aro's like FDF, Grousemoor, 1792 GH aro's like Bob's Choc, Top Black Cherry W.O. Larsen all of em C&D Chick Magnet (had to put a plug in for our blend) There are others but those listed are what comes to mind Ed Puff...don't usually burn aro's though...
My advice would be to try some of the aromatics from Boswell's Tobaccos and Pipeworks and Wilke. I have had great results with their aromatics and they won't goop up your pipe. Milan Tobacconists also have an aromatic called Wall Street that is in the same class. Smokey
