Hi,
As the person who sent Seedobsessor the lentils in the first place, I thought it best to clarify a few points.
First, while I DO prowl the Chinatowns with great frequency, the lentils did NOT come from there. They are from an Asian supermarket nearer my home, but the brand (Laxmi) is a pretty common one carried by purely Indian Supermarkets as well. And that is the other key, the lentils are INDIAN not SE Asian. At least, they are marked as being Indian.
As for the age of the seed, I have no way of verifying it, but the stuff is probably pretty fresh, like from last years harvest. Much before that, the packing company was using a different strain of lentils that was visually distinct from this one (the old one was a macrosperma with little to no mottling or speckling of the seedcoat. This one seems to be a microsperma with HEAVY seed coat speckling.) I CAN vouchsafe the stuff is at least semi fertile. Before I found out Seedobsessor wanted lentils, I dumped many bags of these lentils outside for the critters to take care of (and hopefully thereby get full enough to leave the seed I actually plant alone.) The birds and other things did in fact simply eat most of them (my lawn is littered with empty skins) but at least a few were buried or dropped (or pooped out intact) and there are now one or two volunteer lentils plants sharing space in one of my pots with my peas. So they will at least GROW.