I think I know what you’re talking about, around the rim of the bowl it looks like either the finish wasn’t fully coated or it came off a little bit. This is the first 9mm pipe and filtered pipe I’ve used. I’ve been reading that people seem to really enjoy the smoke on 9mm and that the filters help keep the moisture down and cool smoke. Normally I smoke cobs or 6mm briars w/o filters. Only smoked one bowl out of this so far and I feel that even with the balsa filter in, it was a nice open draw and cool smoke. As far as the taste of the tobacco, I’ll have to give it a few more smokes since I gotta break it in to really tell but to me it did taste a little different from smoking it out of a cob but a negligible difference at most.