Tobacco and Salt Museum Tokyo
Tobacco and Salt Museum Tokyo: read a guide to the Tobacco and Salt Museum in Sumida-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
Tobacco and Salt Museum Tokyo たばこと塩の博物館
© Tobacco and Salt Museum, Tokyo
The Tobacco and Salt Museum is in Sumida-ku not far from Kinshicho to the south-east and the Tokyo Skytree to the north. (It moved from its previous location not far from Shibuya Station to its new site in April 2015.)
The Tobacco and Salt Museum is a modern, high-tech facility that looks at the various uses of tobacco and salt throughout history, both of which were government monopolies in Japan until recently.
Salt Exhibits
The second floor is dedicated to salt both in Japan and other countries: salt production, salt formation, and salt production in both ancient and modern Japan.
Highlights of the salt section include a 1.4 ton piece of rock salt mined in Poland, a replica of the St. Kinga statue, a beautiful piece of carved rock salt, a replica of the original work inside the UNESCO World Heritage listed Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland.
Salt was historically processed in Japan by boiling salt water and a facility for making salt on the Noto Peninsula can now be seen inside the museum.
© Tobacco and Salt Museum; Salt from around the world
© Tobacco and Salt Museum; World Tobacco Collections
Tobacco Exhibits
The tobacco section is dedicated to the origins of smoking, the spread of tobacco and the history of how tobacco came to Japan from the Americas brought by western merchants, the subsequent history of tobacco in Japan and the rest of the world. There are also exact replicas of an Edo era tobacco shop and another from the period 1975-1985.
Cigarette packets, cartons, meerschaum pipes, cigars, rope tobacco, snuff bottles (bienko in Japanese) and other smoking paraphernalia from around the globe are on display along with special exhibitions on a variety of themes including the museums own ukiyo-e collection on the third floor of the new, enlarged museum.
A reproduction of a Mayan shrine from the Palenque ruins in Mexico is also on display at the entranced, with a relief of the smoking god thought to be the oldest depiction of smoking in the world.
Special Exhibitions
The Tobacco and Salt Museum holds temporary special exhibitions throughout the year. See What's on now at the Tobacco and Salt Museum.
Hours and Admission
Open 10 am to 6 pm (last admission: 5:30 pm). Closed Monday.
Admission is 100 yen for adults, 50 yen for students.
Access to the Tobacco and Salt Museum Tokyo
Tokyo Skytree Station on the Tobu Skytree Line (8 minutes on foot)
Honjo-azumabashi Station on the Toei Asakusa Line (10 minutes on foot)
Oshiage Station on the Hanzomon Line and Toei Asakusa Line of the Tokyo subway (12 minutes on foot)
Kinshicho Station on the Sobu Line (20 minutes on foot)
Tobacco and Salt Museum (www.jti.co.jp in Japanese and English)
Yokokawa 1-16-3
Sumida-ku
Tokyo
130-0003
Tel: 03 3622 8801
Find out more about the history of tobacco in Japan at the Awa Ikeda Museum in Tokushima, Shikoku.
© Tobacco and Salt Museum; Edo Period (1603-1867) tobacco shop
© Tobacco and Salt Museum; Previous Tobacco & Salt Museum in Shibuya entrance
