The Value Added (2)
Ever since I quit smoking in my previous life, I hadn't even looked at a cigarette. I was always a person with strong willpower; once I woke up one day and thought, "Ah, I should quit," I never touched one again.
Even so, I didn't particularly hate cigarettes. To be precise, it would be more accurate to say I didn't care whether others smoked or not. "It's their life, they can do what they want."
There were only two instances when I would frown at a smoker: if a minor who hadn't even finished growing up was puffing away, or if someone was brazenly lighting up in a non-smoking area. If it wasn't one of those two, I had no intention of stopping them.
In 21st-century South Korea, personal health issues often led to social problems like the depletion of national health insurance funds, but this world had no such thing. To reiterate, the probability of becoming wolf food while passing through a neighboring village was hundreds of times higher than ruining your life with respiratory problems after smoking for decades.
In a world like this, if you were to say, "Hey, if you keep smoking like that, your lungs will be pitch black in thirty years!" the only response you'd get would be, "Whoa, I'm going to be alive in thirty years? That's awesome."
"What is the smoking situation like in this region?"
That was why I made a bold decision. If people were puffing away everywhere as soon as they got a little money, this was going to be profitable. Very profitable.
"It's mostly in the form of pipes, isn't it?" Kalisa pulled out her own pipe.
"It is standard to sell dried tobacco leaves by weight. In large cities, they sometimes sell them categorized by their region of origin, but here in the North, there aren't many options yet; they just sell whatever stock is available."
"So the taste definitely varies by origin."
"Yes. The tobacco leaves favored by the nobility are sometimes mixed with herbs to create new scents and flavors."
Hearing that a luxury market for tobacco leaves already existed, I clicked my tongue. I had been thinking about adjusting the taste and aroma by adding dried fruits or herbs, or by introducing slight differences in the processing of the leaves. But it seemed the blending technology already existed.
Of course, even with such technology, it wouldn't be very difficult to create a new brand and enter the high-end leaf tobacco market.
'But if I want to enter the market while making a real impact...'
I would have to offer something that didn't exist in this world yet.
"Is snuff tobacco popular at all?"
If they had blending technology, the next step was snuff. In the history of Earth, tobacco evolved from simply burning leaves to inhale the smoke, to using pipes for leaf tobacco, and then came snuff.
"It's hard to call it popular, but if you go to a tobacco shop in a large city, they do sell snuff as well."
"Is that so?"
"Even though it's more expensive than leaf tobacco, I've heard that because you inhale it directly through the nose, it doesn't produce smoke, making it good for indoor use. It doesn't take much time and there's no need to light a fire, so I've heard soldiers, administrators, and sailors often favor it."
"Hmm..."
Then that was out, too.
"Is it just cigars in the end?"
"Pardon?"
"Can I meet the merchant who brings in the tobacco leaves?"
"I will have him summoned immediately."
As Kalisa left the office, I examined the container of tobacco leaves she had left behind and organized my thoughts.
'Cigars. I don't remember the exact details, but...'
To understand cigars, one first needs to understand the history of tobacco. I was a smoker when I worked with tobacco farmers, but if you grabbed a random smoker on the street and asked them, how many could recite the history of tobacco? However, thinking back now, perhaps my subordinate had the foresight that I would end up in the North of another world running a tobacco business, because I remembered studying it quite a bit thanks to the Deputy Mayor's habit of dumping work on me.
Why would I study tobacco history while managing a project linking tobacco farms with rural homestays? Well, high-ranking officials love that kind of storytelling. They need to put up a sign that real tourists don't care about and take a photo in front of it to get into the local newspaper.
Anyway. Tobacco came from America, the land where God poured all His affection. When? In the 15th century. Naturally, since it was brought by Europeans who were half-crazed with colonial expansion, the first "Old World" humans to encounter tobacco were Europeans.
But unexpectedly, it wasn't until the 17th century, much later, that tobacco became explosively popular in Europe. When it was first introduced, it came in as medicine, not a luxury item. You might think, 'Tobacco as medicine?' but that was how it was back then. It was an era where people smeared arsenic on their faces to look pale, so burning tobacco leaves to cure a headache was considered mild.
Tobacco, treated as a medicinal herb, was carried by Portuguese merchants to Japan in the 16th century, where it immediately swept the country. It became a luxury item as people began to enjoy the act of inhaling the smoke itself. Tobacco, which became a huge trend in Japan, naturally landed in Joseon, and the sight of men and women of all ages puffing on long pipes became a daily routine.
However, even up to this era, "tobacco" basically meant leaf tobacco, where the leaves were finely shredded and packed into a pipe. So, when did cigars appear? The appearance of the cigar didn't happen until the late 18th century. The first cigars as we know them were made in Cuba, where tobacco farming was widespread due to the climate. The important part was this.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
My hand began sketching something busily on the paper. That was right. I vaguely knew how to make traditional cigars.
'To think I'd use this here. See, you never know when what you learn will come in handy.'
How does a lowly civil servant know how to make cigars? Again, I had a history of running tobacco farm and homestay tourism projects. To highlight the specialty of the tobacco farms, the higher-ups had hounded me to create "experience products."
- No, I'm telling you this won't work! A cigar-making experience? Our tobacco is a licensed business. Even if it's an experience product, legally speaking, this could be interpreted as manufacturing!
I told them it was absolutely impossible and wouldn't be permitted, but our Deputy Mayor, who was always eyeing the Mayor's seat, had no intention of listening.
- Have you tried it? Huh? Try it first and then talk! This is why people say civil servants have rigid brains! You never try anything and always say "I can't," "It's impossible," ugh! It's because of guys like you that civil servants get cursed at all the time, you know that?
- ...
I couldn't even bring up the "youth harmfulness" issue or the "anti-smoking campaign" the city was pushing, as the Deputy Mayor waved his hand, telling me to get out without wanting to hear another word. The project, which had ground me down for over half a year, was blown to pieces by the city council members at the review stage.
- Even if it's an experience, it could violate the Tobacco Business Act...
- Providing youth-harmful items in a family tourism program...
- Do you know how enthusiastically our local government is running anti-smoking campaigns right now...
It was all the same stuff I had already said six months ago. Damn it.
'Ah, good thoughts. Good thoughts.'
Anyway, the more I think about my previous life, the more arduous it seems. If the work hadn't been fun, I wouldn't have been able to endure it. In that sense, how dreamlike is the current situation? An environment where there are no bosses spouting nonsense, no unreasonable people making crazy demands, and I can truly focus only on the work!
Knock, knock.
"Administrator. I have brought the merchant who imports the tobacco leaves."
While I was lost in thought, Kalisa brought in a short, stout merchant. Given the physical distance from the shopping district to the Lord's Castle, this was practically a kidnapping.
"...I, I, I have committed a mortal sin, Admi, no, Lord, ah, no, Administrator!"
As expected. Perhaps because he hadn't received a proper explanation, tears welled up in the innocent-looking merchant's eyes, and he burst into tears, begging for his life. From the merchant's perspective, he had been asked, "Are you the merchant who imports tobacco?" and then immediately dragged to the Lord's Castle in a carriage, so his reaction was natural.
"I was blinded by money and dared to bring tobacco into the North. I'll give you all my goods and money, so please, just spare my life..."
"Kalisa."
"...My apologies. I brought him in a hurry."
It seemed she had been so excited about a profitable business that she hadn't shown any consideration for the merchant.
"Tobacco, what kind do you handle?"
I directed my question toward the merchant, who had barely calmed down after hearing the full story.
"I handle tobacco from the southern part of the Empire and those grown in the Southern Allied Nations."
"Is there a reason you handle tobacco from two different places?"
"First, the southern Empire and the Southern Allied Nations aren't far apart in terms of distance, but more importantly, the taste is a bit different."
"Why is that?"
"I don't know the exact reason, but the farmers say it's because the soil is different. Other than that, I'm ignorant of farming..."
"In what form do you purchase them from those two places?"
"I purchase them after the farmers harvest the leaves, dry them well, and shred them finely. It's easier to transport and store that way."
"So, unshredded tobacco leaves are impossible to transport and store..."
"That's not the case. It costs a bit more in transport fees, but it's not impossible. It's just that we don't do it because there's no real need to..."
Unlike when he first arrived, he was a merchant who knew how to express his opinions well once he calmed down.
"Wouldn't it be unnecessary to pay several times more in transport costs only to shred them and sell them later? It would just be a lot of extra work for nothing. If you're worried about the origin getting mixed up, you don't need to worry about that. You can distinguish the shredded ones by their scent well enough. Haha!"
"That's not it. I'm thinking of creating a new type of tobacco."
"Pardon? Ah, a new type of pipe?"
"No, a new type of tobacco."
"...?"
To make cigars, I needed unshredded tobacco leaves. Because you have to cut them in half one by one, stack them, cut them in half again, stack them, and finally, wrap them carefully with a tobacco leaf like rolling kimbap to create the shape of a cigar.
"If you bring in the tobacco leaves, I will purchase the entire supply from this side. How about it, is that possible?"
High-end cigars, where one stick can cost well over 100,000 won in Korean currency. I intended to make those.
"I'm going to create a business in the name of the Lord's Castle. I'll be listing it on the stock market opening this spring, so everyone pay attention!"
The birth of a Northern-style KT&G was not far off.