Tabako-bon (the Japanese Smoking Tray)

Tabako-bon is the tray, box, or small chest of drawers that gathered everything needed for kiseru smoking into a single set, used in Japanese homes, shops, and tea rooms. The bon in the name means "tray," reflecting that the earliest examples were round or oval trays. Dictionaries point to the 1638 haikai anthology Taka Tsukuba as the earliest known record of the word, meaning the item took its name roughly half a century after tobacco reached the islands. In form, it is thought to have developed from the kō-bon tray used in the incense ceremony (kōdō). This is also what sets Japan apart within the world history of the pipe: the pipe was treated not as a stand-alone object but as part of a set built together with its surrounding accessories.

The Set's Two Essential Pieces

Two vessels are what turn a tray into a tabako-bon. The hi-ire (火入) is a mostly ceramic container in which a small ember for lighting the pipe is buried in ash; dictionaries record it appearing in a text dated 1678. The haifuki (灰吹) is the bamboo tube into which a finished bowl is emptied by tapping it lightly against the rim; a finger's depth of water in the bottom keeps the ash from scattering. Its name appears in an anthology dated 1674, and it is also known as togeppō. In the incense ceremony, the kōro and taki-gara-ire served the same functions.

Traditionally, two kiseru pipes accompany this pair of vessels. The tobacco sits in a shallow lidded box or in a folded heavy-paper envelope called tatōgami; the cut used is kizami-tabako, sliced hair-thin, discussed in the article on tobacco cuts. Households wanting a fuller set would add a metal tong for carrying the ember, a thin rod for clearing the bowl, and tightly twisted paper wicks (koyori).

In the Tea Room

Within the century after tobacco's arrival in Japan, kiseru smoking also found its place in the flow of the tea gathering (chaji). The set is first placed on the waiting bench in the garden; once the thick-tea portion of the gathering concludes, the host brings it into the tea room. This gesture signals that the ceremony's more formal part has ended and its more relaxed part has begun. The tray is set before the principal guest. According to the etiquette texts of the period, a guest did not bring their own tobacco but made do with what the host had prepared; as with tea and sake, the offered kiseru would first be politely declined a few times out of courtesy.

In the Home and the Shop

Since it was considered normal for a transaction to proceed alongside conversation and a shared kiseru, shops kept their own sets too. These were plain solutions: one side of an open wooden box would be lined with copper to serve as a lidless hi-ire, with a length of bamboo placed beside it. On some examples the shop's name is carved in bold lettering on the body. The sets kept by inns and teahouses were close to those of households of a comparable standing. In homes, the set ranged from a simple tray to a chest of drawers, depending on the household's means.

Chests and the Post-Meiji Era

In wealthier households, the tabako-bon evolves into a small chest of drawers called a tabako-dansu. Its body is either made of fine-grained wood or lacquered; examples finished with maki-e (gold-dust decoration) and mother-of-pearl inlay (raden) on a black ground move beyond mere equipment to become pieces of room furnishing. Such a chest holds a matched, decorated lidded metal hi-ire and haifuki, a carrying handle continuing the body's decoration, a hook for one or two kiseru, and drawers set aside for tobacco and accessories. The kiseru reserved for these chests is mostly the bamboo-stemmed rao-kiseru, reaching 25 to 30 centimeters — a few centimeters longer than pipes carried outdoors. Museum collections also show other forms within the same family: examples with a carrying handle, ones enclosed on three sides to cut the wind, long narrow boxes kept by the bedside, barrel- and boat-shaped versions, and chests with an extra drawer for writing implements.

After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the spread of cigarettes pushed kiseru smoking into decline; the tabako-bon likewise withdrew from everyday life, surviving instead in tea practice and museum collections. While in the West the tobacco pouch, jar, and box developed independently of one another, Japan's gathering of all of them into a single set is the clearest difference from the tobacco box and jar tradition.