Hi there,


might be an odd question, as I don't expect this to be a very common thing:

I'm a pipe smoker and I'm interested in the smoking culture of Japan. I found out that there is this thing called "Kiseru"-Pipe in Japan, which seems to be very different from what I'm used to smoke my tobacco in. Further, the tobacco for it seems to be different too, it is extremely fine cut.

I'm wondering if smoking a Kiseru - and smoking pipes in general - is common/uncommon thing in Japan. Can this still be considered a part of the current smoking culture, or is it just an historical thing and extremely rare?
Pipe-smokers - generally - are quite rare in my country (Germany), but still can be seen from time to time.

Does anyone know something about the Kiseru and pipe-smoking in Japan in general?


Thank you!
Mr. Bojangles

Never actually seen anyone smoke a pipe here...

Seen pipes in old stuff shops... but never seen anyone smoke one..

Lots of cigarette smokers though..

.

Thank you petina and samurai8 for the information!

I'd be interested what "actual kiseru use is somewhat rare" in fact means. Probably far to few people, so that noone knows something about it first-hand. But according to your postings, we could conclude that the Kiseru is more a collector's passion than an part of the japanese smoking culture. Is this true? Noone here has ever seen a Kiseru beeing used in Japan?
(At least, what I know is that the special tobacco for it (kizami) is still being made, so it seems that some people are still using it.)

I did some research for Germany, we have a population of about 80 Millions, and about 500000 still are pipe smokers, so thats a bit below 1%, but still enough to occasionally see it in public.

Thanks again!

Kiseru is traditionally used for kizami which is a tobacco product resembling human hair. In Japan you can see most of the people using kiseru.

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