Taishan Cigarettes are made in Qingdao with Shandong tobacco. The Qingdao Cigarette Factory on Zhu Zhou Lu in Laoshan district is a new facility but modern cigarettes have been made in Qingdao for over 100 years. The 1919 creative park in Taidong was the site of the old cigarette factory in Qingdao. The original company was part of British American Tobacco, and the factory in Qingdao was nationalized and renamed Qingdao Cigarette Factory in 1952. Qingdao Cigarette Factory merged with factories around in Shandong including in Heze, Rizhao, Yantai, Weihai in 1994, and later was renamed Etsong Tobacco in 1995 (the same Etsong with extensive real estate holdings in Qingdao and name of Qingdao’s largest sports stadium).
The original company was part of British American Tobacco, before the factory was nationalized and renamed Qingdao Cigarette Factory in 1952.
Today the Qingdao Cigarette Factory makes cigarettes under the brand Taishan for the Shandong branch of China National Tobacco. Brands that have disappeared over the years or are being phased out but still retain a place in Qingdao cultural and historical lexicon include Double Horses, Gold Flake, Hong Jin, Hong Tu, Da Qian Men, and the most famous, Hatamen (an original British American Tobacco brand from the 1920’s). Many of the antique posters of Chinese cigarette ads are for Hatamen. Taishan Cigarettes are presently being co-branded with A Pen (Yi Zhi Bi) and Eight Happiness and are named after one of the five great mountains (wu yue/五岳) associated with Taoism in China, Mt. Tai in Shandong Province (near Qufu, ancestral home of Confucius).
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Phil
smoking is for fools.