About 15 years ago a tobacco shop closed in Columbia, Missouri and I bought a cardboard box full of 1 1/2 ounce blends for $2 each for English blends and $1 for most aromatics.
Some I smoked then, some I’ve scattered between farm and home and office, and I’ve given some away.
Last fall I found two pouches of 2006 dated Altadis 525 Byzantium and it was powder dry, and I put both in one plastic pouch around an apple slice to moisten it. I got it too wet, removed the apple slice, and about a year later i found the pouch again, and it’s perfectly rehydrated, by my standards.
I filled my new to me Algerian Straight Grain squat apple shaped pipe that rights itself when it’s tipped over, and fired up a bowl.
Oh, my, this tastes good.
English blends do not get better than this.
It’s not complex. It tastes like tobacco with enough Latika in the blend to knock over a Turk.
15 years have mellowed this where you can inhale in your throat enough to blow smoke through your nose and there’s nothing harsh, hot, or bitey about it, just a pure Latika bomb. There are Virginias and Orientals in this, but it tastes like a Latikia flavored ice cream cone.
Don’t worry about setting back English blends.
They’ll be fine, in 15 years.
Some I smoked then, some I’ve scattered between farm and home and office, and I’ve given some away.
Last fall I found two pouches of 2006 dated Altadis 525 Byzantium and it was powder dry, and I put both in one plastic pouch around an apple slice to moisten it. I got it too wet, removed the apple slice, and about a year later i found the pouch again, and it’s perfectly rehydrated, by my standards.
I filled my new to me Algerian Straight Grain squat apple shaped pipe that rights itself when it’s tipped over, and fired up a bowl.
Oh, my, this tastes good.
English blends do not get better than this.
It’s not complex. It tastes like tobacco with enough Latika in the blend to knock over a Turk.
15 years have mellowed this where you can inhale in your throat enough to blow smoke through your nose and there’s nothing harsh, hot, or bitey about it, just a pure Latika bomb. There are Virginias and Orientals in this, but it tastes like a Latikia flavored ice cream cone.
Don’t worry about setting back English blends.
They’ll be fine, in 15 years.
