Esoterica Tobacciana foil bags
Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2019 1:27 pm
So, my prejudiced pipe tobacco preconceptions have been strongly challenged this afternoon. As a little background for those who haven't heard as much on the pipe shows, I've long been a proponent of emptying non-tin containers into jars for longterm storage. The 8 oz. bags that Esoterica uses were atop that list. From everything I'd gathered over the years, they simply don't work for longterm storage and will allow the tobacco inside to dry out - even if they're sealed, conventional wisdom says the bags are selectively permeable and will allow the blend's "essence" and moisture to escape.
Well, back in 2009 I was in the final throes of my pipe tobacco purchasing days. I'd assembled far more tobacco than I'd ever smoke in a lifetime (I was sometimes immoderate in my youth). Through some long forgotten chain of events, I managed to end up with a few bulk bags of tobacco in my cellar that weren't transferred to jars. One was MacBaren Navy Flake, a couple MacBaren HH Vintage Syrian, and today's topic - Margate, from Esoterica Tobacciana. These bags lay dormant in the back of my cellar until I came across them one day and realized it had been too long to transfer them to jars. I could have, but my thought was any damage was done and wouldn't get worse; they should have long dried out if they were going to do so. So...they sat. Fast forward to the past year. I have opened the MacBaren bags and found, as suspected, very dry tobacco. I made feeble attempt to rehydrate and got something smokeable but knew I'd screwed the pooch. The MacBaren bags were not designed for long term storage, so I refrain from saying they "failed". I did the failing by putting them through something for which they weren't designed.
Fast forward, once again, to today. I pulled out the bag of Margate which is dated either Dec 9th, 2009, or January 29, 2009 - apparently, I was too lazy to put dashes on the day I wrote the date on it, simply scribbling '12909'. I opened the bag expecting dry tobacco. I was surprised to find tobacco in about as perfect a smoking condition as I've ever seen. So much so that I sent a little video to Craig demonstrating the "pinch" to show it. I'm dumbstruck.
I know this is a single event, and doesn't disprove anything - but man am I astounded by this. I would have bet my last dollar that this tobacco would be crispy crunchy. I'm happy as a clam, though. Margate is good stuff....
Well, back in 2009 I was in the final throes of my pipe tobacco purchasing days. I'd assembled far more tobacco than I'd ever smoke in a lifetime (I was sometimes immoderate in my youth). Through some long forgotten chain of events, I managed to end up with a few bulk bags of tobacco in my cellar that weren't transferred to jars. One was MacBaren Navy Flake, a couple MacBaren HH Vintage Syrian, and today's topic - Margate, from Esoterica Tobacciana. These bags lay dormant in the back of my cellar until I came across them one day and realized it had been too long to transfer them to jars. I could have, but my thought was any damage was done and wouldn't get worse; they should have long dried out if they were going to do so. So...they sat. Fast forward to the past year. I have opened the MacBaren bags and found, as suspected, very dry tobacco. I made feeble attempt to rehydrate and got something smokeable but knew I'd screwed the pooch. The MacBaren bags were not designed for long term storage, so I refrain from saying they "failed". I did the failing by putting them through something for which they weren't designed.
Fast forward, once again, to today. I pulled out the bag of Margate which is dated either Dec 9th, 2009, or January 29, 2009 - apparently, I was too lazy to put dashes on the day I wrote the date on it, simply scribbling '12909'. I opened the bag expecting dry tobacco. I was surprised to find tobacco in about as perfect a smoking condition as I've ever seen. So much so that I sent a little video to Craig demonstrating the "pinch" to show it. I'm dumbstruck.
I know this is a single event, and doesn't disprove anything - but man am I astounded by this. I would have bet my last dollar that this tobacco would be crispy crunchy. I'm happy as a clam, though. Margate is good stuff....