Quote Originally Posted by AndyCAYP View Post
I have 2-3 year old 8oz tins of AnniKake and Blackhouse that are rolling along just fine.
Care to school me in this statement?
Hi Andy,

I had almost completed this response when my Chromebook rebooted itself.

Ageing is synonymous with marrying but the latter describes the process, a combining of flavors. Aged tobacco (one hopes) will be smoother, more subtle and nuanced but there's a gradual loss of individual flavors. I'm sure that you know all this.

Generic tobacco types 'age' at different rates that might simply be said to be the giving or receiving of flavors. Burley does it readily, Virginia does not. Some moisture is necessary and pressure speeds up the process. Much, if not most, pipe tobacco spends some (if not all) of its life in a pressed form for this reason. By pressing a single varietal into a cake you increase the flavor consistency. Press a mixture into a cake to reduce the strength of individual flavors in the blend. The reason that Virginia (traditionally) are often made into flake form is because they better tolerate pressure and they won't become a muddled mess.

An example (sorry if I'm repeating myself).
I opened a number of tins of Elephant & Castle The Stout (full latakia mixture) over a several year period. It improve nicely within a year but was sublime with 3-5 years of age. By 8 years the latakia was losing distinction. Last year, a friend graciously opened a 1985 (29 years old) tin of The Stout and though very smooth it had combined into a monochromatic flavor with almost no latakia distinction. The Stout was packed under pressure.

About the same time I opened a tin of McClelland's #14 (medium latakia mixture) from 1998 (16 years old) that was packed without pressure. It had lost a little oomph but was still a very good smoke, probably would have been best with 10-12 years of age.

Regards,

Pete