For centuries the tobacco of Giannitsa was a famous product of the Ottoman state. It is said that when the sultans deliberated the important state affairs, they only smoked tobacco from Giannitsa in tobacco syringes (pipes) from Bursa. The following text extract describes the tobacco town in the 19th century.
«…The leaves have been lately gathered, strung together, and hung up dry, which operations are chiefly performed by the women: every wall in the town is now festooned with tobacco leaves, but particularly the open galleries which surround all the houses, and into which the inner chambers open. As the apartments in general have hearths only, without chimneys, the smoke of the wood which is burnt upon them circulates amidst the tobacco leaves, and gives the tobacco a peculiar flavor…»
William Martin Leake (1835)
