Dry it out, yes, and be sure you are tamping often enough. Another technique that helps some blends is to further rub out or grate the leaf a little smaller, which makes it dry faster and burn more evenly. You can do this by hand, with a sharp knife on a cutting board, with a spice grinder (briefly, you don't want powder) or a little hand grater a bowl or two or three at a time. Sometimes, if you go to stronger blends and then move back to milder, you pick up the taste on the milder blends better -- counter intuitive, but works for some.