Rehydrating Snuff

I recently decided to revisit the various coarse, dark, moist snuffs produced by Samuel Gawith. I bought a selection of them in the new 10g plastic dispensers (tap boxes). The size seems useful as a sample with my aim being to choose one or two for buying in bulk, either 250g or 500g drums. Unfortunately those dispensers are far from airtight and the snuff in a number of them was already too dry for use. This did sometimes happen with the old tins, but not quite so often.

However, rather than throw them away I decided to use them for rehydration experiments. One method in particular has worked very well, though it should be noted that the snuffs weren't totally dry but just about getting to that stage. Some were close to that "shotgun pellet" condition which has been noted by others.

I transferred the snuff to an empty 25g Toque tin and then lightly sprayed a mist of water on top of the snuff
using an old glass hay fever nasal spray bottle. By removing the thin plastic tube that goes down to the bottom of the bottle, which normally enables it to be used upright, you can use it upside down. The tube just pulls out. The bottle is like the one shown below, but in glass.

With the lid of the tin back on I let it sit for a hour or so and then gave it a good shake. The snuff was pretty well back to what it should have been. Soft and fluffy and very tasty. I did this with London Brown, Black Rappee, Scotch Black, Scotch, Cob Dark and Princes Dark, all with excellent results. Much faster than any other method I have tried and it gives even results as the water goes onto the snuff as a mist.