As early as 6,000 years ago, the Mayans, who lived in what is now Mexico, began growing and consuming tobacco. As they picked and tasted plants, they found that they could refresh themselves with this particular plant, with its spicy taste and intoxicating aroma. Chewing more and more tobacco, the Mayans developed it into a hobby, making the first step to introduce tobacco into human life and habits.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus first encounters dried tobacco leaves. The Spanish monks traveling with Columbus on his second expedition discovered the strange American Indian custom of snorting snuff. Later, in 1531, Native American leaders taught Europeans how to make cigars. Since then, the technology spread from Cuba to Europe and beyond. In 1833, British began making the first cigarettes for commercial. During the Crimean war, British soldiers learned the method from soldiers of the Ottoman empire and spread it to different places, sale, leading to the rapid spread of cigarettes.
In 1916, the American Tobacco Company introduced Lucky Strike cigarettes, engaging the services of a famous opera star for endorsements, saying that Lucky Strike would not irritate his voice. In 1953, Ronald Reagan appeared in magazine ads with a Chesterfield dangling from his lips saying, “No unpleasant aftertaste.”
With the prevalence of tobacco smoking as a major part of popular culture, countless lives on earth have been affected. In the mid-20th century, people finally recognized the harmful effects of the cigarette. In 1969, the members of the European and American Executive Boards of the WHO adopted a resolution to prohibit smoking in WHO meeting places.
In 2005, the first e-cigarette was launched in China, marking the birth of e-cigarettes and people’s yearning for health. Instead of burning traditional tobacco, e-cigarettes can effectively avoid the harmful substances so that users can enjoy a healthier way of intaking nicotine.
Since 2010, new products in the e-cigarettes field have rapidly developed in increasingly diversified forms. By this time, China had already become the largest OEM rather than the largest e-cigarette market, with over 90% of the world's e-cigarette equipment being produced in Shenzhen. Meanwhile, the global ecigarette market was growing rapidly and vaping becoming a worldwide popular-culture pastime. At the same time, e-cigarettes are also used in medicine to help people relieve many diseases and troubles. In 2014, “vape” was named as the word of the year by Oxford dictionary. Ever since, the Bohemian charm of the old Marlboro man has given way to images of a group of friends sharing e-cigarettes on social networks.
The boom of the e-cigarette industry has attracted countless merchants and brands. Behind the prosperity, issues of varying quality, copycats, even shoddy products and mercenary behavior emerged one after another. Some observers felt that the industry's flightiness was pushing the e-cigarette sector into an abyss.
In late 2019, a team eager to overturn the rough image of the e-cigarette industry emerged. Supported by a manufacturing team with over 10 years’ accumulated experience, the team determined to start out on an elegant boutique path. The team named themselves UPENDS, taking “Refine and Redefine” as the underlying philosophy. Instilling “details”, “artistry”, “style”, “craftsmanship” and “taste” into the UPENDS gene, they aspired to create an elegant and casual e-cigarette experience for vapors vapers around the world.
Throughout the history of tobacco, its addictive nature has meant that many smokers have been unable to rid themselves of the addiction. Now, e-cigarettes developed for smoking cessation with less harm, offer a new way out of the situation. UPENDS firmly believes that the world will not need any form of tobacco in the future. In order to achieve the purpose of tobacco replacement or even smoking cessation, UPENDS has been focusing on refining the e-cigarette so that more and more smokers would take up this alternative.
