Cellaring tobacco for a rainy day

(G. L. Pease) In the early 1980s, when I first took up the pipe seriously, aging tobaccos wasn’t something many smokers talked about. Most pipe smokers simply bought their tobaccos from their local shop, smoked it, and thought little of it. In fact, older literature often suggests that tobaccos should be enjoyed relatively fresh.
Charles Rattray, for instance, in his Disquisition for the Connoisseur (date unknown), wrote, "Tobacco is a vegetable that lives and breathes: it does not improve by being imprisoned in an air-tight compartment." Continued

Pictured: Jean Xceron at work on a mural photographed for the Works Progress Administration (Smithsonian Institution).