I think I have to explain the history of tobacco.


Many people think that the native Americans are the origin of tobacco, as Christopher Columbus brought the tobacco in the Large navigation age, but it was used as an equipment for the "contact with god" in ancient Maya.
A man smoking a cigar is graved on the deity and many ancient pipes were graved at South America.

Tobaccoes were first introduced to Japan in the 16th century but it was a cigar that Portuguese were smoking.
As tobaccoes were expensive, we developed our own "shredded tobacco(kizami)" in Japan.
You may find khsier and tobacco tray of the Meiji era in old houses.


"Yamabuki" is no longer available.


Tobaccoes were started cultivated in Japan and they are called "native kind". "Enshu", "Daruma", "Hakushu" etc. exist.
There are various opinions about the place and time when tobacco was first cultivated in Japan. 1605 Kagoshima is an established theory.

On the other hand, tobacco introduced by Columbus was marked as an almighty medical herb in Europe. It was the time when the black plague in vogue and doctors pressed that tobaccoes work for any medical diseases.
However, the monotheism did not allow the fact that tobaccoes have holy spirit and once suppressed but this prohibition made tobaccoes in much fashion.
People who removed to the new land, America, started cultivating tobaccoes at Virginia state, This is the origin of Virginia tobacco.
Tobaccoes can be classified in 7.
-Virginia
-Orient
-Kentucky
-Burley
-Cavendish
-Perique
-Latakia

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At the French Court, it was said that noble people should not spue smoke from their mouthes and noses, and snuff tobaccoes without smoke became in fashion.
At this time, pipe tobaccoes were the tastes of the lower classes.
This relation was reversed at the French Revolution in 1789.
The mainstings of the revolution were the generals who were smoking tobaccoes "with" smoke.
Snuffs were drove out and pipe tobaccoes and cigars won the championship.

"Cigarette" is thought to be the result of the Crimean War but we can go back to the 1850s Russia.
However, cigarettes were holed cheap as "people who don't know the taste of tobacco smoke them".
Cigarettes came into fashion after the Industrial revolution.
The age changed in speedy and easy cigarettes were paid attention.
The cigarettes in the 1850s differ from the ones we smoke now.
There were empty spaces at the filters.
The reason is, it was difficult to cram tobaccoes at both ends.
We had to wait for the improvement of the rolling method.
The filtered cigarettes came out from 1950s.
The first cigarette with filter is said to be "KENT/1952".



The former cigarettes were in simple blends of Virginia and Orient. In 1913, "CAMEL" adopted Burley which was said not suitable for cigarettes and added spices. This method is called "American blend".





As when the spices were burnt, harmful objects come out from the blue smoke, filtered cigarettes became popular.
In Japan, charcoal filter is adopted for most of the cigarettes, which was first used for "SevenStars" in 1969 in Japan.
Charcoals are seldom used in cigarettes of Europe.



To go back with pipes, the clay pipes were in common with no durability. Sailors bought a lot of clay pipes of consumption for an voyage.
When Briar pipes and Meerschaum pipes appeared, they are not consumptions and the beauty of the grains was observed and fixed the prices.
Pipes held authority over the nobles.




Before WWII, tobacco tax ranked 40% of the total in Japan.
After the war, British American Tobacco(BAT) tried to enter the tobacco market of Japan but it was criticized that "the policy of BAT is similar with colonialism" and Japan Tobacco & Salt Public Corporation was established in 1 June 1949.
The first filtered cigarette in Japan "HOPE" came out in 1 July 1957, the space age symbol "SevenStars" came out in 1 Feb.1969.


Japan Tobacco Industry(JT) was established in 1985 and this is the presently.

Handmade pipes are made not only in Japan but in Europe and 10,000,000Yen class pipes are sometimes dealt.
Cigars are also in a boomlet among young ladies.

More than 500 brands are sold in Japan now, but light-tobacco intention is going too far, many brands but only few of them are attractive.


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