To all, but particularly to those of you who have older tins; tins 20, 25 or 30 year’s old or more ...
The aging of pipe tobacco is generally considered a good thing, right? Subjectively, a certain degree of aging rounds the edges off the blend, marries the components and often intensifies the flavors. But extreme aging also changes the blender’s overall intended result. A 25 year old tin is not the same product as imagined by the blender. There is an inherent problem with extremely long term cellaring: a tin that a 25 years old today may be 45+ years old or more (an age few were intended to achieve) before it is eventually opened, and that can’t always be a good thing.
As I understand it, all agricultural products have a lifespan, a quality lifespan. At some point, whether it’s a loaf of Wonder Bread or a vintage bottle of Chateau Petrus the product will eventually reach a quality level peak or apogee and then begin to decline.
The merits of whether “to jar, or not to jar” aside, this concept should be true with most tinned pipe tobaccos. To believe all tinned pipe tobaccos improve indefinitely with age is magical thinking.
For example, some Latakia mixtures mellow to banality with extreme age, some Virginia flakes eventually lose freshness and spice to the point of becoming the ghosts of Virginias past, and so on.
Perhaps it is prudent to rotate out some of the 25 to 30+ year old tins (sell or trade them) and then backfill with newer tins, new favorites, to avoid TTDS (tobacco tin decline syndrome) and thus insure that there will be a quality smoke available after an additional 10, 15 or 20 years aging and not just tins of petrified bat guano.
What do you think?
The aging of pipe tobacco is generally considered a good thing, right? Subjectively, a certain degree of aging rounds the edges off the blend, marries the components and often intensifies the flavors. But extreme aging also changes the blender’s overall intended result. A 25 year old tin is not the same product as imagined by the blender. There is an inherent problem with extremely long term cellaring: a tin that a 25 years old today may be 45+ years old or more (an age few were intended to achieve) before it is eventually opened, and that can’t always be a good thing.
As I understand it, all agricultural products have a lifespan, a quality lifespan. At some point, whether it’s a loaf of Wonder Bread or a vintage bottle of Chateau Petrus the product will eventually reach a quality level peak or apogee and then begin to decline.
The merits of whether “to jar, or not to jar” aside, this concept should be true with most tinned pipe tobaccos. To believe all tinned pipe tobaccos improve indefinitely with age is magical thinking.
For example, some Latakia mixtures mellow to banality with extreme age, some Virginia flakes eventually lose freshness and spice to the point of becoming the ghosts of Virginias past, and so on.
Perhaps it is prudent to rotate out some of the 25 to 30+ year old tins (sell or trade them) and then backfill with newer tins, new favorites, to avoid TTDS (tobacco tin decline syndrome) and thus insure that there will be a quality smoke available after an additional 10, 15 or 20 years aging and not just tins of petrified bat guano.
What do you think?
