Where Did Snus Come From?

Snus came from Sweden, where people stopped sniffing powdered tobacco and began tucking moist ground tobacco under the upper lip in the early 1800s. It reached Norway later that century, while the two countries were in union, and it only became the Norwegian favourite after the Second World War. 18+ only. Norway has a knack for adopting things from elsewhere until they feel entirely native, rather like the coffee that nobody here grows, yet everybody pours from a thermos at the top of a ski trail.

So, this page follows the whole route, from a plant carried across the Atlantic to snuff at the French court, then to Swedish farm kitchens, factory loose snus and the small pouch most people in Oslo or Bodø picture today. Along the way, I will separate the dates that so often get muddled, because a history starting in the 1500s and one starting in the 1800s are usually describing different chapters of the same book. If you mainly came for snus itself, or you would rather buy snus straight away, both are a click away, although I would suggest reading the story first.

Did Snus Begin In Sweden Or Norway?

Snus began in Sweden, and Norway adopted it later, which can surprise people given how firmly the tin belongs to Norwegian life today. The product started out as a variant of snuff, the powdered tobacco people sniffed into the nose, and by one account snuff has been popular in Sweden since at least the middle of the 1500s. That early date refers to snuff in general rather than the moist lip habit, and I will come back to why the difference matters.

So the short answer is that snus began in Sweden and reached Norway in the late 1800s. Today a tin in a coat pocket in Stavanger is an everyday sight, which is a long way from that Swedish beginning. In my opinion, neither side needs to claim the other's part of the story. If you would like the broader background on the product before the history, the Snus Guide covers the basics, and this page keeps firmly to the question of where it all began.

How Did Sniffed Snuff Turn Into Snus?

Snuff came first, and snus grew out of it once tobacco had made the long trip from the Americas into Europe. The French diplomat Jean Nicot, who lived from 1530 to 1600, is credited with popularising ground tobacco as snuff after he gave some to Catherine de' Medici, and taking a pinch then became the fashion at the French court. His name lives on in the word nicotine, which is a rather lasting souvenir for a diplomat. From the French court, the fashion for nasal snuff spread outwards across Europe and eventually northwards.

By the early 1600s, sniffed snuff was a known habit in Sweden as well. Tobacco also arrived in Sweden during that century through New Sweden, a short lived Swedish colony on the American coast in what is now Delaware. In my view, this is the most overlooked link in the chain, because it shows Sweden had its own small doorway to the plant rather than relying only on the fashions of the European courts. But, at this point the habit was still a sniffing one, and the move to the mouth was some way off yet.

For a reader in Trondheim or Tromsø, the useful takeaway is that snuff and snus are relatives rather than twins. Snuff was a dry powder taken through the nose, while snus became a moist preparation that sits in the mouth. The shared ancestry explains the similar names, and it also explains why older writing can use one word where we would now use the other. So, when you meet an early mention of snus in a book or on a museum label, it is worth checking which of the two is actually being described before you take the date at face value.

Why Did Swedish Farmers Start Making Their Own?

Swedish farmers started making their own because tobacco was expensive, and growing and grinding it at home was the cheaper route. Farmers had begun growing their own leaf around the 1600s, and in 1724 King Fredrik I urged Swedes to grow tobacco at home, which set farmers grinding local leaf in earnest. The home grown version was mixed with salt and water and pressed into a ball, which is about as far from a modern pouch as a farmhouse loaf is from a supermarket bun.

Anyone who knows Norwegian farm life, with its home churned butter and meat cured in the storehouse, will recognise the thinking behind this. By the early 1800s, the tools were ordinary household ones too, with coffee grinders and hand carved mills doing the work in Swedish kitchens. Salt and water still have a place in snus, and the page on what is in snus? ingredients explained sets out what goes into a modern can. In my opinion, the farm kitchen is where snus stopped being a borrowed fashion and became a Nordic habit with its own character.

When Did Snus Move Under The Lip?

Snus moved under the lip in the early 1800s, when the moist kind that farmers were grinding at home took over from nasal snuff in Sweden. Tobacco was still dear, and the moist version offered a cheaper way to enjoy it than fine snuff, which perhaps explains why the change spread so readily through ordinary households. By the 1820s, pasteurisation had become part of Swedish production, and it still sets snus apart from American dipping tobacco, which is not pasteurised. If you would like the wider family laid out side by side, what types of snus are there covers it well.

The placement settled into its own pattern as well. Snus sits under the upper lip, whereas American dipping and chewing tobacco usually goes in the lower lip and tends to bring on more saliva, so snus needs no spitting. That single difference does a great deal to explain how snus later fitted into Norwegian routines, from the morning ferry to the desk. The production story from grinding to the finished can has its own page on how is snus made, so I will leave the factory floor there and stay with the timeline.

Why Does Every History Of Snus Seem To Give A Different Date?

The dates conflict because each one marks a different stage, and most short histories give a single year without saying which stage it belongs to. The 1500s mark tobacco and snuff taking hold in Europe, the 1600s mark snuff and tobacco reaching Sweden, the 1700s mark the royal encouragement of 1724, and the early 1800s mark moist snus under the lip. Accounts also blur at the edges, with home growing placed in the 1600s by one telling and tied to 1724 by another, so a little disagreement is normal rather than a sign that anyone has the story wrong.

In my opinion, the best supported date for snus as we know it is the early 1800s, with the older dates belonging to its ancestors. The timeline below sets the stages side by side, which makes the muddle far easier to untangle.

How Did Snus Reach Norway?

Snus reached Norway in the late 1800s, during the years of the union with Sweden, and it arrived as an everyday habit rather than anything grand. It has stayed ever since, and it is perhaps the most lasting Swedish souvenir in many a Norwegian jacket pocket.

Before snus, Norwegians mostly chewed plug tobacco, and that habit held the larger share for a long time. At its peak, chewing tobacco made up about 60 per cent of the market, which suggests it was a thoroughly ordinary part of daily life. Snus has been the most common form of smokeless tobacco in Norway since the Second World War, so the handover took decades rather than years. I like to picture it as a slow relay, with chewing tobacco carrying the baton through the early 1900s before snus took it for the rest of the century.

Why Did Norwegians Take To Snus So Readily?

Chewing tobacco had been the habit before snus, and snus needs no spitting, which made it an easy successor to the plug. That is the part of the story the history supports, and it fits a country where the older habit was already well established. Today about 13 per cent of Norwegians use snus daily, according to Statistics Norway at the time of its survey.

As a bit of everyday colour, a tin sits in the jacket pocket on a Sunday ski trip near Lillehammer as naturally as the thermos and the orange, and it belongs to a weekend at a mountain cabin as much as the wood stove does. If you are curious about why the pouch sits under the upper lip and what happens once it is there, how does snus work explains it properly, while this page keeps to the history.

How Did Loose Snus Become The Pouch Most People Use?

Loose snus became the pouch in 1973, when portion snus in small pouches was introduced in Sweden. The product had already come a long way by then, from homemade balls of salted tobacco to pasteurised loose snus made in factories, which users shaped with their fingers before placing it. The pouch did away with that step, offering a ready portion with the same placement under the lip. In Norway today, the word snus usually means these portion pouches, and people who want the older kind tend to ask for loose snus to be clear.

I think of the change as a bit like moving from splitting your own firewood to buying it ready chopped in a bag at the petrol station, since the fire stays the same while the preparation becomes quicker. Around 2003, the small pouch format was also used for tobacco free nicotine pouches, which keep the pouch and the lip placement while changing what fills it. That being said, each step left the core routine intact, which is perhaps why someone in Fredrikstad today would still recognise a habit their great grandparents knew. The tidy portion feels modern, yet it rests on two centuries of Swedish and Norwegian practice.

How Have Norwegian Snus Habits Changed In Recent Decades?

In recent decades, snus has grown into one of the most common daily tobacco habits in Norway. Figures from Statistics Norway put daily snus use at about 13 per cent of Norwegians at the time of the survey. At the same time, the product most people have in mind has shifted firmly to the pouch, and tobacco free nicotine pouches now sit alongside tobacco snus. For a habit that crossed over from Sweden in the late 1800s, that is a long way travelled.

If you would like to trace the story for yourself, start with the Swedish lip habit of the early 1800s, then work backwards to snuff and forwards to the 1973 pouch, and any date you come across will slot neatly into place. When you want to see where the pouch has travelled since, browsing Velo snus is one easy way to set today's format beside the loose snus of a Trondheim kitchen a century ago, and we deliver to Norway. Then, next time someone at the cabin asks where snus came from, give them Sweden first and save the long version for the second cup of coffee.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Snus
• The Local Norway, Norwegian word of the day: snus
• The Local Norway, What is snus and why do so many Norwegians use it
• Free Malaysia Today, news report on Statistics Norway data
• Wikipedia, Union between Sweden and Norway