Sure, I vacuum seal tins in foodsaver bags when I get them for storage. It’s just a backup in case any seals fail, plus even sealed tins can leak a little. Take a new sealed tin and put it in a regular ziplock bag and open the bag in about four weeks. Chances are you’ll be able to get a little whiff of tobacco smell. Not always, but more often than many might think. My obsessive compulsive side wants to preserve the tobacco as good as possible. 

If I don’t open and jar them right away, I vacuum seal bulk bags in an additional bag just for a little more piece of mind. 

I know I’ve gotten a little carried away with it, but I like tobacco 🙂

To be fair, my collection is as much a result of time as anything else. I did a fairly large re-stock over the past few years and I only started buying some C&D in the last three years, but this room represents almost 25 years of accumulation. 

I have also found the Esoterica bags are not reliable, I always jarred immediately with those. That is DAN Castle Blend No. 2. 

And yet I still want more 🙂 Maybe I do have an illness. 

I recognize that I'm thinking in your approach to keep tobacco since I read your post, and I´ll try it. I´ll do it with two same batch identical tins for a year, one in your way and the other with mine.

I do this because of my experience with tobacco and wine. They are very different things, but they have many many points in common. 

In my experience, it is a fact that recently packed tobacco hasn´t yet developed it´s potential. Same with wine. A lot of things happen into a tobacco tin during the first six months from packed, and will continue happening but with less intensity over the time. All these things contribute to develop flavors and ad complexity, but not all tobaccos age in the same way and at the same speed, again like wine. So, I think the ideal place to age tobacco is a well sealed tin, like a bottle is the ideal place for wine.

Again in my experience, a just opened tobacco tin provides a not very nice tobacco to smoke. Maybe too moist, or too dry. The lack of air for years make it opaque, inexpressive, rare. Same with wine. Flavors develop in presence of air, and a well matured tobacco needs to breathe. In a serious wine taste, wine is transferred to a decanter to air it. 

I noticed that highly pressed tobacco in a tin needs more areation than one packed more loose. A clear example are many Rattray tobaccos packed pressed in 50 gr tins and more loose in the 100gr tins. It´s the very same tobacco, but behaves a bit different. 100gr tins need just a couple of days in a jar to get their complete expression.

Of course I´m not a scientist and my appreciations are subjective, based in my personal experience and taste.

Yesterday I purchased 2 tins of Gawith Hogart Balkan Mixture to make the experiment I told you to compare my method with yours. One of the tins will be unopened until let´s say November 15 2024, then transferred to a jar until December 6 2024.

I have just opened the other and transferred to a jar. (As usually with Gawith and Gawith Hogart the tobacco was too moist for my taste). I´ll smoke from both next December 6 2024 and see which provided the best results. I´ll let you know. It would be interesting you do the same with other different tobacco if you are curious about the results.

I chose this tobacco because I have never smoked it, so I will not have any preconceived ideas when I smoke to compare. The second reason to choose this tobacco is because Rattray's is now very scarce in Spain and the tobacconist say there will be out of the shelves for a long time. I´m purchasing some tobaccos to try and find substitutes to my beloved Black Mallory and Red Rapparee. I don't know if the recent corporate movements in Kolhasse & Kopp, now renamed Koop Tobaccos, after the Kolhasse brothers leaved K&K for differences with the future plans of the company, has something too see with the scarcity of their tobaccos in Spain. I heard the rumor that a big American Company, maybe C&D is going to take the Kolhasse brothers shares of K&K. Do you know something?

Yesterday I was too lazy to take pictures

Thanks Flip. My ex bought that for me back in the 80's. 

Nicely organized and very inviting. With everybody’s posts, mine looks all the more disheveled. 15 pipes is like getting a few French fries from someone, it’s difficult to not want your own order of them. Your wife should be able to understand that. 🙂

Nice and well jarred collection!!!.

Mine does not wonder anything, just because she doesn't know almost nothing. As the Spanish proverb says "Ojos que no ven, corazón que no quiebra" Eyes that do not see, heart that does not break.

Thanks Ted...only it doesn't.... 😐 

Yes, I’m probably on the spectrum somewhere, though I’ve never been tested. My younger brother has Asperger’s, as does his son. I’ve definitely got a tendency to be meticulous about things and I’m naturally averse to chaos! Not quite OCD-level, but close! 😄

I like both Danish and Japanese design: Simple, clean and beautiful. Life is complicated enough! I think our environment is better when it’s designed to counterbalance that 😊