Sam Gawith

[sablebrush52]

Let me type slowly. Revor has been Danish made (therefore sucked) for many years.
A simple glance at the packaging tells all, and one look at the plug will assure anyone that it wasn’t from a GH press.

We..elll, I don't think all Danish made tobaccos suck, just current Danish, and for that matter German, made versions of British blends, when compared to the originals, which very few here have ever smoked.

And when MacBaren first introduced Savinelli Doblone d'Oro it was a very good clone of Three Nuns, so they can do it when they want to. Still a good blend, but not the same. And while MacBaren's St Bruno Virginia Base isn't as rich or interesting as the Ogden's version, it's still more than acceptable to this long time St Bruno fan.

We takes our wins and losses as they come.

 

[gamzultovah]

@gawithhoggarth , keep up the good work. I smoke more of your blends than I do any other. And, I do not find it difficult to obtain it in sufficient quantity commensurate to my consumption. I’m actually able to find so many of your blends in such sufficient quantity (via the @sablebrush52 method), that I’m able to give away the excess to friends who are not so fortunate in their search. Again, keep up the good work. My smoking enjoyment is greatly enhanced because you persist to exist.

 

[The Clay King]

Can anyone please let me know why there is no FVF or St.James Flake available lately? Is it Covid related or are there lots of new pipe smokers whom have discovered how wonderful and unique Gawith’s tobacco’s are?

@JP64 I got some loose Full Virginia Flake in Buxton (UK) last week when I went to the Crescent.

 

[woodsroad]

I'm not here to be a dick. But neither am I here to do any knee-jerk laudatory posting. The question of supply and demand is as old as man. If a company like Gawith Hoggarth is in the enviable position to have demand for their exceptional products that outstrips supply, then that leaves consumers asking why they can't find their products for sale. Well, there can be a lot of reasons why, like not enough raw product that meets their exacting criteria, or a labor shortfall, legal restrictions, distribution bottlenecks/problems or production problems/bottlenecks. If a manufacturer's representative is brave kind enough to frequent these pages, then someone (me) is going to ask these questions. Why that gets everyone's panties in a twist is a bit amusing, but obviously either I wasn't clear enough, or the written tone of my missives was off more than a little. So, sorry if I came off as a richard, that wasn't my intent. Of course, intention doesn't mean squat and perception means everything.

So, the question persists:
Why can't your US distributor keep enough of your products on hand to satisfy demand? I'm not berating anyone here, just wondering. Certainly, if GH has decided that they don't want to expand, I get it, but don't fully understand it.

 

[rick3wood]

I'm not here to be a dick. But neither am I here to do any knee-jerk laudatory posting. The question of supply and demand is as old as man. If a company like Gawith Hoggarth is in the enviable position to have demand for their exceptional products that outstrips supply, then that leaves consumers asking why they can't find their products for sale. Well, there can be a lot of reasons why, like not enough raw product that meets their exacting criteria, or a labor shortfall, legal restrictions, distribution bottlenecks/problems or production problems/bottlenecks. If a manufacturer's representative is brave kind enough to frequent these pages, then someone (me) is going to ask these questions. Why that gets everyone's panties in a twist is a bit amusing, but obviously either I wasn't clear enough, or the written tone of my missives was off more than a little. So, sorry if I came off as a richard, that wasn't my intent. Of course, intention doesn't mean squat and perception means everything.

So, the question persists:
Why can't your US distributor keep enough of your products on hand to satisfy demand? I'm not berating anyone here, just wondering. Certainly, if GH has decided that they don't want to expand, I get it, but don't fully understand it.

Quit while your behind

 

[woodsroad]

Quit while your behind

You were doing OK as a lurker.

 

[sablebrush52]

I'm not here to be a dick. But neither am I here to do any knee-jerk laudatory posting. The question of supply and demand is as old as man. If a company like Gawith Hoggarth is in the enviable position to have demand for their exceptional products that outstrips supply, then that leaves consumers asking why they can't find their products for sale. Well, there can be a lot of reasons why, like not enough raw product that meets their exacting criteria, or a labor shortfall, legal restrictions, distribution bottlenecks/problems or production problems/bottlenecks. If a manufacturer's representative is brave kind enough to frequent these pages, then someone (me) is going to ask these questions. Why that gets everyone's panties in a twist is a bit amusing, but obviously either I wasn't clear enough, or the written tone of my missives was off more than a little. So, sorry if I came off as a richard, that wasn't my intent. Of course, intention doesn't mean squat and perception means everything.

So, the question persists:
Why can't your US distributor keep enough of your products on hand to satisfy demand? I'm not berating anyone here, just wondering. Certainly, if GH has decided that they don't want to expand, I get it, but don't fully understand it.

She has answered some questions in other threads concerning EU regs and other issues that pertain to distribution as well as component supply issues. A "richard"? That's a new one on me.

I guess I just see this as something that happens with different companies and different blends. There have been several periods where Wessex Campaign Dark Flake was missing in action for extended periods of time, as well as John Aylesbury Luxury Flake, Fribourg and Treyer Cut Virginia Plug (that one was in short supply for a couple of years), Rattray's not all that long ago, and other brands. Krumble Kake fell off the edge of the Earth for 4 or 5 years, and there was an announcement that it was coming back and THAT never happened. Shortages of different blends isn't a rare occurrence. The whole Esoterica mania took off because Germain's had a long break between shipments. Nobody cared before that happened. People went nuts and the mania hasn't stopped. I feel like there's been more G&H over the past couple of years than in years prior. Maybe I'm wrong, dunno.

 

[woodsroad]

She has answered some questions in other threads concerning EU regs and other issues that pertain to distribution as well as component supply issues. A "richard"? That's a new one on me.

I guess I just see this as something that happens with different companies and different blends. There have been several periods where Wessex Campaign Dark Flake was missing in action for extended periods of time, as well as John Aylesbury Luxury Flake, Fribourg and Treyer Cut Virginia Plug (that one was in short supply for a couple of years), Rattray's not all that long ago, and other brands. Krumble Kake fell off the edge of the Earth for 4 or 5 years, and there was an announcement that it was coming back and THAT never happened. Shortages of different blends isn't a rare occurrence. The whole Esoterica mania took off because Germain's had a long break between shipments. Nobody cared before that happened. People went nuts and the mania hasn't stopped. I feel like there's been more G&H over the past couple of years than in years prior. Maybe I'm wrong, dunno.

“Richard” is the formal of “Dick”.

 

[gawithhoggarth]

All of this has been answered a hundred times.
We are a very small company. There are 30 of us in total.
We are a small factory and finding larger premises where we are (even setting aside the astronomical cost for land and building around here) is near on impossible. And we cannot simply move away from the Lake District and Kendal area as our brand is intrinsic to it and our family is here, our work force is here. New machinery runs into millions and millions and millions and the stuff on the market is not conducive to how we make our tobacco - it is for mass produced stuff so we would need bespoke machinery, that takes R&D, time, an awful lot of money......We are of courses constantly evaluating this BUT at the moment the most important thing is to ensure we comply with Track & Trace and all regulations or its doors shut anyway!
Many of our products are hand made, the machinery does not exist to do the same job. As already explained it can take up to 3 months to fill a container for the States. And due to shipping costs and regulations we have to send by container. The distributor is not going to spend thousands and thousands on shipping a half full container just so you can get a bit of a certain tobacco a few weeks sooner. That said we have worked closely with the distributor to streamline the process and look at what is ordered and plan production so containers are filled and go as soon as possible.
There is a massive demand for plugs, twists and flakes. These take forever to produce for many reasons. For SG tins (again SG is just one part of our brand/business) which take much longer to pack and sort than bulk bags. If people just wanted bulk mixtures we could fill a container in a couple of weeks and ship it.
It can take weeks to arrange a shipment, logistics of sending tobacco are a nightmare and forever changing. It can then take anywhere from 10 days to 3 or 4 weeks for that container to reach the States. We have no control over this. And then no control over how and when the distributor makes the products available to retailers and when retailers sell products.
And as many seem to conveniently forget, the USA is just one market we supply. We need to stock for the UK as well, and that is a different market with orders coming in daily and going out daily. We supply many other countries. Orders are planned in months ahead. This is not unusual in the tobacco world or in many supply chains these days. Some products we order in have a 9 to 12 month lead time from ordering to when we receive them.
We are limited by the UK government on how much raw leaf we can order in a year, we are limited by storage capacity as to how much we can hold.
If we just forgot all our other sales regions and just made for the States, then sure you'd get stuff quicker but that would be a very stupid business decision to put all eggs in one basket.
And much of the problem with supply in the USA is hoarders and people buying massive amounts to cellar or sell on the secondary market. Chinese using backdoor ways to get lots of individuals to order with USA addresses, its sent to a warehouse in the states and then shipped to China. This all scews the market and makes it difficult to actually see the proper demand and longer term forecasting.
So simply telling us to produce more to meet demand as though that was an easy thing to do is rather naive at best.

 

[The Amish Tyrant]

All of this has been answered a hundred times.
We are a very small company. There are 30 of us in total.
We are a small factory and finding larger premises where we are (even setting aside the astronomical cost for land and building around here) is near on impossible. And we cannot simply move away from the Lake District and Kendal area as our brand is intrinsic to it and our family is here, our work force is here. New machinery runs into millions and millions and millions and the stuff on the market is not conducive to how we make our tobacco - it is for mass produced stuff so we would need bespoke machinery, that takes R&D, time, an awful lot of money......We are of courses constantly evaluating this BUT at the moment the most important thing is to ensure we comply with Track & Trace and all regulations or its doors shut anyway!
Many of our products are hand made, the machinery does not exist to do the same job. As already explained it can take up to 3 months to fill a container for the States. And due to shipping costs and regulations we have to send by container. The distributor is not going to spend thousands and thousands on shipping a half full container just so you can get a bit of a certain tobacco a few weeks sooner. That said we have worked closely with the distributor to streamline the process and look at what is ordered and plan production so containers are filled and go as soon as possible.
There is a massive demand for plugs, twists and flakes. These take forever to produce for many reasons. For SG tins (again SG is just one part of our brand/business) which take much longer to pack and sort than bulk bags. If people just wanted bulk mixtures we could fill a container in a couple of weeks and ship it.
It can take weeks to arrange a shipment, logistics of sending tobacco are a nightmare and forever changing. It can then take anywhere from 10 days to 3 or 4 weeks for that container to reach the States. We have no control over this. And then no control over how and when the distributor makes the products available to retailers and when retailers sell products.
And as many seem to conveniently forget, the USA is just one market we supply. We need to stock for the UK as well, and that is a different market with orders coming in daily and going out daily. We supply many other countries. Orders are planned in months ahead. This is not unusual in the tobacco world or in many supply chains these days. Some products we order in have a 9 to 12 month lead time from ordering to when we receive them.
We are limited by the UK government on how much raw leaf we can order in a year, we are limited by storage capacity as to how much we can hold.
If we just forgot all our other sales regions and just made for the States, then sure you'd get stuff quicker but that would be a very stupid business decision to put all eggs in one basket.
And much of the problem with supply in the USA is hoarders and people buying massive amounts to cellar or sell on the secondary market. Chinese using backdoor ways to get lots of individuals to order with USA addresses, its sent to a warehouse in the states and then shipped to China. This all scews the market and makes it difficult to actually see the proper demand and longer term forecasting.
So simply telling us to produce more to meet demand as though that was an easy thing to do is rather naive at best.

I always appreciate your forum posts providing insight "behind the curtain".

Thank you for being you.

 

[The Clay King]

I always appreciate your forum posts providing insight "behind the curtain".

Thank you for being you.

@The Amish Tyrant The Clay King is a big fan of Gawith baccy; I've been smoking Ennerdale Flake, Full Virginia Flake and Coniston Cut Plug in the clay pipe recently. Bought it loose so no plastic packaging!

 

[paulfg]

I'm not here to be a dick. But neither am I here to do any knee-jerk laudatory posting. The question of supply and demand is as old as man. If a company like Gawith Hoggarth is in the enviable position to have demand for their exceptional products that outstrips supply, then that leaves consumers asking why they can't find their products for sale. Well, there can be a lot of reasons why, like not enough raw product that meets their exacting criteria, or a labor shortfall, legal restrictions, distribution bottlenecks/problems or production problems/bottlenecks. If a manufacturer's representative is brave kind enough to frequent these pages, then someone (me) is going to ask these questions. Why that gets everyone's panties in a twist is a bit amusing, but obviously either I wasn't clear enough, or the written tone of my missives was off more than a little. So, sorry if I came off as a richard, that wasn't my intent. Of course, intention doesn't mean squat and perception means everything.

So, the question persists:
Why can't your US distributor keep enough of your products on hand to satisfy demand? I'm not berating anyone here, just wondering. Certainly, if GH has decided that they don't want to expand, I get it, but don't fully understand it.

I'm not here to be a dick
your doing a mighty fine job of one.
It surprises me as someone who has had actual experience of the tobacco industry that you feel the need to question a long established firm about there business format

 

[Davide Dogo (PIPA&BARBA)]

In Spain we do have Samuel Gawith available, but we are quite disappointed with him, since Hoggarth took control of the brand. They have doubled their price and the cans are made without pressurizing and to prevent the tobacco inside from drying out, the propylene glycol cans are puddled. Faced with this problem, some members of our club contacted the factory, the factory's response was clear, they responded literally: OUR TOBACCO ARE NOT INTENDED FOR AGING, THAT'S WHY OUR CANS ARE NOT VACUUM PACKED. So despite being available, they are becoming quite unpopular.

 

[gawithhoggarth]

In Spain we do have Samuel Gawith available, but we are quite disappointed with him, since Hoggarth took control of the brand. They have doubled their price and the cans are made without pressurizing and to prevent the tobacco inside from drying out, the propylene glycol cans are puddled. Faced with this problem, some members of our club contacted the factory, the factory's response was clear, they responded literally: OUR TOBACCO ARE NOT INTENDED FOR AGING, THAT'S WHY OUR CANS ARE NOT VACUUM PACKED. So despite being available, they are becoming quite unpopular.

As already explained, we do not control Spanish tax laws. And there had been no increase in prices for a number of years and so we had a price increase last year. GH took over SG in 2015. We are now 8 years later and there was a price increase 7 years after the take over. It was either this or stop producing due to the cost of everything going up. We bought SG as it was basically no longer a viable company and was going to fold.

And all our tins are vacuumed sealed so you have NOT been told that the tins are not vacuumed sealed. But our tobacco is NOT made for ageing. And there are constant remarks about how wet our tobacco is so it's not drying out in tins. No idea what you mean by glycol puddling. And as we are regularly sending to Spain and have a good new distributor there and it's going well, clearly its not becoming unpopular.

But if some members of your pipe club are not happy with SG tobacco, then there are many others on the market you can buy.

It amazes me that people complain about price increases of tobacco when literally everything has doubled in cost over the last year or two but they somehow think tobacco should have remained the same. The food in supermarkets here is now nearly double for many things, electric and gas has gone through the roof, water prices have gone up, wages are constantly going up, taxes on tobacco go up massively each year, raw leaf goes up, transport has gone up, packaging has gone up, rent has gone up, more and more regulations which mean more computer systems, more tracking, more machinery..........yet we are expected to keep our prices the same or only small increases? If you want the tobacco, then prices have to go up inline with everything else.

 

[gamzultovah]

All of this has been answered a hundred times.
We are a very small company. There are 30 of us in total.
We are a small factory and finding larger premises where we are (even setting aside the astronomical cost for land and building around here) is near on impossible. And we cannot simply move away from the Lake District and Kendal area as our brand is intrinsic to it and our family is here, our work force is here. New machinery runs into millions and millions and millions and the stuff on the market is not conducive to how we make our tobacco - it is for mass produced stuff so we would need bespoke machinery, that takes R&D, time, an awful lot of money......We are of courses constantly evaluating this BUT at the moment the most important thing is to ensure we comply with Track & Trace and all regulations or its doors shut anyway!
Many of our products are hand made, the machinery does not exist to do the same job. As already explained it can take up to 3 months to fill a container for the States. And due to shipping costs and regulations we have to send by container. The distributor is not going to spend thousands and thousands on shipping a half full container just so you can get a bit of a certain tobacco a few weeks sooner. That said we have worked closely with the distributor to streamline the process and look at what is ordered and plan production so containers are filled and go as soon as possible.
There is a massive demand for plugs, twists and flakes. These take forever to produce for many reasons. For SG tins (again SG is just one part of our brand/business) which take much longer to pack and sort than bulk bags. If people just wanted bulk mixtures we could fill a container in a couple of weeks and ship it.
It can take weeks to arrange a shipment, logistics of sending tobacco are a nightmare and forever changing. It can then take anywhere from 10 days to 3 or 4 weeks for that container to reach the States. We have no control over this. And then no control over how and when the distributor makes the products available to retailers and when retailers sell products.
And as many seem to conveniently forget, the USA is just one market we supply. We need to stock for the UK as well, and that is a different market with orders coming in daily and going out daily. We supply many other countries. Orders are planned in months ahead. This is not unusual in the tobacco world or in many supply chains these days. Some products we order in have a 9 to 12 month lead time from ordering to when we receive them.
We are limited by the UK government on how much raw leaf we can order in a year, we are limited by storage capacity as to how much we can hold.
If we just forgot all our other sales regions and just made for the States, then sure you'd get stuff quicker but that would be a very stupid business decision to put all eggs in one basket.
And much of the problem with supply in the USA is hoarders and people buying massive amounts to cellar or sell on the secondary market. Chinese using backdoor ways to get lots of individuals to order with USA addresses, its sent to a warehouse in the states and then shipped to China. This all scews the market and makes it difficult to actually see the proper demand and longer term forecasting.
So simply telling us to produce more to meet demand as though that was an easy thing to do is rather naive at best.

I think I love you.

 

[Davide Dogo (PIPA&BARBA)]

As already explained, we do not control Spanish tax laws. And there had been no increase in prices for a number of years and so we had a price increase last year. GH took over SG in 2015. We are now 8 years later and there was a price increase 7 years after the take over. It was either this or stop producing due to the cost of everything going up. We bought SG as it was basically no longer a viable company and was going to fold.

And all our tins are vacuumed sealed so you have NOT been told that the tins are not vacuumed sealed. But our tobacco is NOT made for ageing. And there are constant remarks about how wet our tobacco is so it's not drying out in tins. No idea what you mean by glycol puddling. And as we are regularly sending to Spain and have a good new distributor there and it's going well, clearly its not becoming unpopular.

But if some members of your pipe club are not happy with SG tobacco, then there are many others on the market you can buy.

It amazes me that people complain about price increases of tobacco when literally everything has doubled in cost over the last year or two but they somehow think tobacco should have remained the same. The food in supermarkets here is now nearly double for many things, electric and gas has gone through the roof, water prices have gone up, wages are constantly going up, taxes on tobacco go up massively each year, raw leaf goes up, transport has gone up, packaging has gone up, rent has gone up, more and more regulations which mean more computer systems, more tracking, more machinery..........yet we are expected to keep our prices the same or only small increases? If you want the tobacco, then prices have to go up inline with everything else.

By soaked in Propylenglycol I mean that, as you know and due to the great problem that occurred with your tobaccos between 2018 and 2019, which arrived completely moldy (I attach photos) or completely dry, you have decided to impregnate your tobacco in this type of alcohol (Propylenglycol) in indecent amounts, so much so that cans without vacuum packaging maintain their moisture, so much so that tobacco when it is "dry" seems to remain moist.
During those years; 2018, 2019, 2020... coincidentally, your cans changed, according to close sources your European can supplier retired and you decided to cut costs by ordering the cans from China, a fatal mistake instead of looking for a local or European can supplier. As you already know, the problem with these Chinese cans is that they are made of a much softer metal and of poorer quality and lose their vacuum over time... The packaging machine does not work well, you said... You know, from Spain, there were hundreds of complaints and cans returned... dozens of 250g packages returned to the tobacconists...
You even went so far as to put glue inside the cans (photo attached) so that they would not lose the vacuum packaging... but without success... the cans lost it.
Seeing that it was inevitable, your speech changed, saying that now Samuel Gawith did not manufacture his tobacco prepared for aging, when we all knew that Samuel Gawith had always had tins in perfect condition that endured decades of aging in the cellar.
We, who love tobacco and this noble art above all else, feel sorry and are truly sad to see how a company with so many years of prestige behind it doubles its prices and lowers its quality so much.
It is totally logical that the prices go up... but that the quality be maintained, not that the quality go down. Most veteran pipe smokers in Spain already advocate manufacturers
like Kohlhase & Kopp, more constant and neat, with perfect cans and tobaccos without problems, at lower prices.

 

[Davide Dogo (PIPA&BARBA)]

By soaked in Propylenglycol I mean that, as you know and due to the great problem that occurred with your tobaccos between 2018 and 2019, which arrived completely moldy (I attach photos) or completely dry, you have decided to impregnate your tobacco in this type of alcohol (Propylenglycol) in indecent amounts, so much so that cans without vacuum packaging maintain their moisture, so much so that tobacco when it is "dry" seems to remain moist.
During those years; 2018, 2019, 2020... coincidentally, your cans changed, according to close sources your European can supplier retired and you decided to cut costs by ordering the cans from China, a fatal mistake instead of looking for a local or European can supplier. As you already know, the problem with these Chinese cans is that they are made of a much softer metal and of poorer quality and lose their vacuum over time... The packaging machine does not work well, you said... You know, from Spain, there were hundreds of complaints and cans returned... dozens of 250g packages returned to the tobacconists...
You even went so far as to put glue inside the cans (photo attached) so that they would not lose the vacuum packaging... but without success... the cans lost it.
Seeing that it was inevitable, your speech changed, saying that now Samuel Gawith did not manufacture his tobacco prepared for aging, when we all knew that Samuel Gawith had always had tins in perfect condition that endured decades of aging in the cellar.
We, who love tobacco and this noble art above all else, feel sorry and are truly sad to see how a company with so many years of prestige behind it doubles its prices and lowers its quality so much.
It is totally logical that the prices go up... but that the quality be maintained, not that the quality go down. Most veteran pipe smokers in Spain already advocate manufacturers
like Kohlhase & Kopp, more constant and neat, with perfect cans and tobaccos without problems, at lower pric

Obviously the cans are no longer moldy, but this is due to the application of Propylenglycol in them. What's more, if you go to our last ranking of TOP 15 BEST TOBACCO, we included Samuel Gawith among the first five positions.

TOP 15 MEJORES TABACOS DE PIPA DISPONIBLES EN ESPAÑA: VIRGINIAS Y VARIANTES NATURALES - https://pipaybarba.home.blog/2023/05/24/top-15-tabacos-de-pipa-disponibles-en-espana-virginias-y-variantes-naturales/

 

[gamzultovah]

As already explained, we do not control Spanish tax laws. And there had been no increase in prices for a number of years and so we had a price increase last year. GH took over SG in 2015. We are now 8 years later and there was a price increase 7 years after the take over. It was either this or stop producing due to the cost of everything going up. We bought SG as it was basically no longer a viable company and was going to fold.

And all our tins are vacuumed sealed so you have NOT been told that the tins are not vacuumed sealed. But our tobacco is NOT made for ageing. And there are constant remarks about how wet our tobacco is so it's not drying out in tins. No idea what you mean by glycol puddling. And as we are regularly sending to Spain and have a good new distributor there and it's going well, clearly its not becoming unpopular.

But if some members of your pipe club are not happy with SG tobacco, then there are many others on the market you can buy.

It amazes me that people complain about price increases of tobacco when literally everything has doubled in cost over the last year or two but they somehow think tobacco should have remained the same. The food in supermarkets here is now nearly double for many things, electric and gas has gone through the roof, water prices have gone up, wages are constantly going up, taxes on tobacco go up massively each year, raw leaf goes up, transport has gone up, packaging has gone up, rent has gone up, more and more regulations which mean more computer systems, more tracking, more machinery..........yet we are expected to keep our prices the same or only small increases? If you want the tobacco, then prices have to go up inline with everything else.

Now I know I love you. As a small business owner here in the states, what you are saying is not only familiar, but music to my ears. People who are not in the game (or who have been out of the game for a while) simply do not understand the gargantuan task it’s become to run any type of supply company these days, let alone a supply company that also manufactures. It’s not curious to me why people ask such questions, what is curious is that such questions get asked and garner no defense. Heaven forbid you should ever question why Mike & Mary McNiel chose to abruptly close their business or why they didn’t pass on their formulas, and you will be met with pitchforks and torches; but you, who chooses to continue in a game that many have chosen to exit (think Daughters & Ryan) gets pilloried with little to no defense? Unimaginable…

Stay course and continue to do what you obviously love to do on your terms, for yourself, your employees and your clients who do (all of us) appreciate you.

 

[timt]

This is all so disconcerting. Everything from Dan getting dogpiled to one of my favorite blend makers standing trial. This is all messing with my serene morning breath smoking and bird watching.

 

[coming to_falling too]

The whole unsealed tin thing does piss me off. Made to age or not, I think you should be able to buy a tin and it be sealed. Regardless of this I still continue to buy their products. Gotta have my Gawith fix.