CIGARS AND PIPES IN HONG KONG: A MISERABLE SITUATION!

One cannot smoke in public in Hong Kong. It is expressly forbidden in workplaces, restaurants, coffee shops, cha-chanteng, public transit, public toilets, cinemas, and karaoke joints.
Beaches, shopping malls, and whiskey dives are also off-limits.
One can get a nasty massage, but not smoke during.
Abuse wait-staff, but not while smoking.
Create a public disturbance.
When not smoking.

Lighting up a smoke is a far worse moral failure than being a corrupt politician, obnoxious mainland visitor, drunken white tourist, or petty gangster acting brutal on the bus.

In some ways, Hong Kong mirrors San Francisco.


With ONE major difference.


Cigar lounges!


太平洋雪茄有限公司
香港，上環，幹諾道中148號，粵海投資大廈16樓。
營業時間：900 – 1800。
The Pacific Cigar Company Limited
21/F Guangdong Investment Tower.
148 Connaught Road, Central, Hong Kong.
Hours: 9:00 am – 6:00 pm


香港長紅雪茄
旺角店：
香港，九龍，旺角，西洋菜南街1A號，百寶利商業中心，22樓，02室。
營業時間：逢星期一至六1300 – 2200; 星期日 1300-1800。
Ever Cigars Ltd.
Mongkok branch:
Pakpolee Commercial Centre, 22nd floor, suite 2.
1A Sai Yeung Choi Street, Mong Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Hours: 1:00 pm - 10:00 pm; Sundays 1:00 - 6:00 pm
銅鑼灣店：
香港，銅鑼灣，軒尼詩道472號，南業大廈2樓，208, 209室。
營業時間：逢星期一至五1900 – 2200; 星期六及日休息。
Causeway Bay branch:
South Industrial Building, 2nd Floor Room 208, 209
472 Hennessy Road, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong,
Hours: 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm; closed Saturday and Sunday.


There are also a number of venues where Davidoff cigars are sold, as well as nightclubs where they just don't care. And the following are worthy of note:

The Humidor @ L'Etage
Macau Yat Yuen Centre
523-527 Hennessy Road, Hong Kong

Red Chamber Cigar Divan
Shop M1, Mezzaine Floor, Peddar Building,
12 Peddar street, Central, Hong Kong

Cohiba Divan
Mandarin Hotel, Shop G6, East Lobby,
5 Connaught Road, Central, Hong Kong

La Casa del Habano Cigar Lounge
Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel & Towers,
20 Nathan Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong


The places listed above are cigar shops and lounges, where snobbishness and membership are de rigeur. The free-range pipe smoker is largely a maverick, and not entirely welcome anywhere.


烟草
[在香港抽香烟的人太多，但抽烟斗的人太少。]


So much for the dark side. What about tobacco?

The Davidoff shop at the Peninsula sells pipe tobacco, mostly Davidoff and Peterson. Wing On Department Store sells Peterson tobaccos. For the rest, it's a crapshoot. Tins of Dunhill are available here and there.
Plus W.Ø Larsen pibetobakker.


If you are in Shek Kip Mei (石硤尾), you might want to investigate Sun Wah Compradore (新華辦館).

新華辦館
香港，九龍，石硤尾，窩仔街101號，石硤尾村20座。
Shek Kip Mei Estate Block 20, 101 Woh Chai Street,
Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

They carry a few pipes and tobaccos, in addition to other goods.
Please report back to me, as I have never patronized them.
I heard there was a nascent pipe club in Shatin.
But it may have been stillborn.


The term 辦館 ('paan gun') means a grocery, and is often applied to the convenience stores in office buildings, by the way. Drinks, snacks, insta-noodle, liquor (including Hennesy and Remi Martin), six-packs, sauces, sausages, pickles, and smokers requisites.

Do you want some fancy hooch with your stink-weed?
Perhaps a packet of Kwon Miu Rice Noodle?
I know, beer! You want beer!



Upon reconsideration, only for pipe smokers is the situation pretty miserable. But for cigar smokers, Hong Kong is a little slice of all-right. There are more than sufficient venues that cater to their depravity, damn them, but probably not a single shop that caries Rattray's blends, or Samuel Gawith. Not even the Esoterica line of products!
Sometimes life is rather a disaster.




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