Tobacconist in Kabuki (Japanese traditional play)

This print depicts a scene from kabuki (Japanese traditional play). This is an example of the tobacconists in the Edo area. Tobacco was introduced to Japan at the end of the 16th century. Japanese people began to smoke by cutting tobacco leaves as fine as hair and smoke it with kiseru (Japanese pipe). Smoking cut tobacco with pipe was not rare smoking style, but no other country in the world cut tobacco leaves as thin as Japanese cut tobacco. In this scene, a man with pipe is cutting the tobacco leaves.