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).