History of Cigarettes

Today people have many entertainments and ways to relax. Some bets on sports on the bookmaker Canada website, and someone like cigars and cigarettes. This is a fairly old entertainment that has long been loved by many men around the world. However, where did the fashion for smoking come from and where did cigarettes first appear? We will talk about this in this article.

Studying the history of cigarettes is an important step in understanding the formation of the smoking habit. Who and when came up with the idea of getting nicotine with the help of rolled tobacco, not every heavy smoker knows. Meanwhile, this addiction has long been rooted in the modern world. In this article, we will look at how the first cigarettes appeared, what their packs and filters were like at the beginning of their history, and how tobacco in this form spread throughout the world.

When did cigarettes appear and who created them

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The prototype of the first cigarette was seen among the American Indians, who, instead of sniffing and chewing crushed tobacco leaves, wrapped them in cane or corn leaves. The fact that the smoking of tobacco came from the Indians is confirmed by the drawings found in the ancient temples of America. They depict the use by the Indians of contraptions that resemble modern cigarettes in appearance. Back in 1492, the famous navigator Columbus described tobacco plants, which the Indians told him about, and also tried to systematize information about the properties and methods of using tobacco in his diary.

Cigarettes in a form closer to modern tobacco products began to appear in 1636. At this time, the first state-owned tobacco factory in Spain began its work. It produced cigars, after the manufacture of which there were trimmings of tobacco leaves and other production waste. Factory workers devised a way to use them by rolling shredded tobacco residue into a thin sheet of paper. The cigarette got its name, which was translated as a small cigar, in 1833, when the idea of factory workers was seen by the French prose writer and poet Gauthier. The first cigarettes appeared on the market only in 1847. They began to produce the English company, Philip Morris. In parallel with this, hand-rolled cigarettes of Turkish origin entered the market.

The first cigarette pack: how it appeared and changed

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As soon as the first cigarettes began to appear, it became necessary to address the issue of their transportation, packaging, and storage. If you remember how tobacco was stored, you can pay attention to the fact that special boxes acted as containers for its large quantities. They were called humidors. Tobacco was sold most often by weight, pouring it into small pouches. For cigarettes, this method of packaging was not suitable.

Special tobacco boxes were too inconvenient for storing tobacco products rolled into paper sheets. To replace them, they came up with soft packs in which cigarettes were packaged. They were marked with a special marking, thanks to which it was possible to understand what brand of tobacco products is contained in a particular package and how many cigarettes there are. In order for cigarettes not to dry out and retain their flavor, they began to put a sheet of foil into soft packs. Such packages were not very reliable, so they were later transformed into more durable cardboard packs, which are still used for packaging cigarettes.

How cigarettes got filters

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When the first cigarettes began to appear, people who smoked them began to notice that particles of tobacco regularly enter their mouths. The sensations received at this time were unpleasant. It was only about 100 years ago that they began to figure out how to limit the ingress of particles of tobacco leaves into the oral cavity. So, in 1925 they began to produce filter cigarettes. True, the first attempts to filter out the garbage that enters the mouth when smoking was a somewhat more complicated process. At first, filters were made from paper and were a separate part, not connected to cigarettes. The smoker himself inserted them into the cigarette before lighting it up. Filter and cigarettes did not become one until 1935. This date marks the release of the first whole cigarette with a filter.

Manufacturers continued to work on improving the taste properties of cigarette smoke, as well as its purity. This is how filters appeared, which began to be created from acetate fibers. With their help, it was possible to prevent the formation of an extraneous aftertaste when lighting cigarettes. Later cigarettes with carbon filters began to be produced. Thus, manufacturers were able to make the taste of tobacco less tart. The mid-1950s was the next stage in the evolution of cigarette filters. Now, some brands of cigarettes, they began to resemble mouthpieces. The housing of such filters is equipped with a special recess. Thanks to him, cigarette smoke combined with air.

Worldwide distribution of cigarettes

Even during the Crimean War, the practice of making cigarettes on their own spread among the soldiers of the countries participating in it. They came up with the idea of pouring tobacco into cardboard tubes from under the powder charges. Later, cigarettes began to spread throughout England thanks to Phillip Morris, whose products gradually entered the international market. In the United States, the first cigarette factory appeared in 1864. The volume of products manufactured by the company began to increase in 1881. At this time, manual labor for the production of cigarettes began to be actively replaced by machine labor, since an apparatus for rolling tobacco products were invented.