Sugar Crystals or Mold?

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seanv

Lifer
Mar 22, 2018
3,108
11,131
Canada
Mold would be fuzzy and be able to be scraped off with a fingernail or a blade. This looks like crystal to me.
 
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anotherbob

Lifer
Mar 30, 2019
16,825
31,566
46
In the semi-rural NorthEastern USA
anyone who has had moldy tobacco will tell you it doesn't tend to leave any question. Even if you didn't know what mold was it would still smell bad and gross.
Have had pipe tobacco go moldy once, very neglected and abused tobacco I didn't really want to smoke that got left in a draw. And had some snuff get moldy. Both smelled horrid and unpalatable and there was zero question is this mold. It clearly was growing something and it was clearly something not to consume. Now crystals had those once on some cigars and at first thought it was mold but it actually smelled wonderful and I now call them flavor crystals.
 
Jun 23, 2019
1,937
13,236
Let us know how it smoked.

To be honestly, it looks 50/50 to me on this picture only. Usually, crystals appear roughly at the same rate on similar leaves. It's encouraging the whiteness appears to only be on the bright yellow leaves, but the barren yellow leaves above is kind of odd.

Usually mold is around a central location across all leaves.
 
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Sharp_tungsten

Starting to Get Obsessed
Aug 25, 2021
223
389
Evans City Pennsylvania
I think it crystals as it smells like sweet hay and floral of a Virginia. Forgive my camera but it looks like ice formed on the leaves. No sour or funk smell at all. Now the bigger issue is something is wrong with my palate as thus is about the 15th good quality Virginia I've tried and I think I'm done with them. They are taste like sucking cardboard to me. I've tried Capstan, orlik, escudo, navy rolls, Stonehenge and many more. They are meh to me. I wanted to be a Virginia guy so bad lol.
 

JOHN72

Lifer
Sep 12, 2020
5,880
57,804
51
Spain - Europe
To be honest, it doesn't look good, I hope they are sugar crystals. A month ago I threw away about ten grams of Ascanian 2, I had it in a can for daily rotation, but it got too wet, with the paper wrapped around it.
 
Jun 23, 2019
1,937
13,236
I think it crystals as it smells like sweet hay and floral of a Virginia. Forgive my camera but it looks like ice formed on the leaves. No sour or funk smell at all. Now the bigger issue is something is wrong with my palate as thus is about the 15th good quality Virginia I've tried and I think I'm done with them. They are taste like sucking cardboard to me. I've tried Capstan, orlik, escudo, navy rolls, Stonehenge and many more. They are meh to me. I wanted to be a Virginia guy so bad lol.

If that's the case, then you are a-okay on the mold/crystals front.

As for your virginia issues, probably just the growing pains of the newby. It took myself a few years to "get" virginias and then a few more to realize I have a slight sensitivity/palette reaction to red virginias that make them taste like chemicals.
 
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