Changes In Tobacco's Presentation Over Time

[d4k23]

I have been meaning to post about this for a while now, and I am finally getting around to it. I had a tin of Opening Night from 10 yrs and 7 yrs (see other thread about Gaslight for reference). Pictures are worth a thousand words, here they are:

Maybe you can guess which one is older and which is younger, but when I had this aged beauty it was the best tobacco I had tried to date. The moisture was perfect, the smell was like fermented beer and the flavor was fig and dried fruits, which makes my mouth water thinking about it! Perfect flakes stacked on each other in the tin.
Then when I opened the 7 yr old tin, the note had a hint of the fermented beer, but more hay/grass scent. The flakes were brighter and broken throughout the entire tin, not single full flake. The 7 yr tobacco did not knock me off my feet as that first tin did. Good, but not memorable like the first.
Question for discussion, any one else ever experience this with tobacco?

 

[jpmcwjr]

Yes. I have had tins from different years with different characteristics, including different cuts.

 

[erhardt85]

That is a beautiful flake. If I knew that's what I'd receive I would buy some right now haha. I'm not sure of the reason why but from what I know most of C&D manufactured broken flakes made in recent years are more broken and less flake. Almost a ready rubbed in some cases. Which is what that younger pic looks like. I'm curious about why. Those little flakes look so delicious. I have some Sunday Picnic from last year that's aging and the tin I purchased from 2013 that spurred my purchase had flakes that in my memory looked better. These new ones look very thin and as a result there are a lot of visible empty spaces in the flakes. I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes when it comes to flavor using fold and stuff compared to a tighter and thicker flake.

 

[d4k23]

That tin was a 2007 yr tin I scored from woopigpiper, and needless to say I thought opening night was going to be my new favorite tobacco! So I bought a few new tins, and then scored a 2013 tin. A little dissapointed in the blend after that, still good, but glad I didnt stock up more.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Astleys 109 changed cuts and presentation a couple of times in the last few years. It started off as a beautifully packed loose flake laid about in a spun circle. Then a couple of years ago, they started making it into a genuine stacked flake. Then they used rectangle tins for a few weeks (it seems) and then back to putting the flakes into a round tin. The recipe seems to have changed with each presentation change as well.