Have you ever opened an older tin and concluded that you preferred it fresh? Or perhaps aged a blend only to find the tin or its seal had failed, rendering the tobacco unsmokable?
Unfortunately, yes. Two blends come immediately to mind.
I
love the delicate floral-incense qualities of Syrian latakia, but I’ve found that at least one of my preferred Syrian blends—Brebbia’s now-discontinued Preludio Mixture No. 60—loses that unique flavor/aroma over time. (It may depend on the actual Syrian used. I haven’t compared Preludio to, say, Frog Morton across the Pond, which I believe may have used Syrian from that remarkable harvest in the early 2000s.) Now, it simply smokes like a standard English. That’s fine, but it’s not what it once was.
And I
love fresh Penzance. Once I discovered it, it was my number-one blend and the majority of what I smoked every day for more than a decade. (That was when it was as readily available as any other blend.) But there is a particular tang to the orientals—especially noticeable in the retrohale—when it’s young that mellows away once it has even a couple of years on it. To me, aged Penzance just isn’t the same revelatory Penzance that introduced me to the blend.
As for “lost” tins: Within the last five years, I discovered that a long-held round tin of Margate had lost its seal; that a 20+ year old canister of London Blend #1000 had a tiny, tiny rust spot that compromised the tin; and that basement mice had discovered a fondness for Esoterica bags, leading to the loss of 1-and-a-half pounds of Penzance. (If it had just been a seal failure, I’d have saved the tobacco, which was what I did for the Margate and the London Blend; dried-out tobacco can easily be rehydrated. I was squeamish, though, about trying to smoke something that had come into close contact with mouse saliva.)
And, yes, I realize that I was just saying I didn’t love aged Penzance as much as fresh Penzance. Still, it was a heartbreaking loss, because
some Penzance is better than
no Penzance.
