Rediscover

Its so important  to keep an open mind about hookah.

Everyone who smokes hookah at home is an “experimenter”.¬† never fails. Trying new mixes of shisha, buying shisha you’ve never even smoked just to try it out. Keeping inmind that maybe the cheaper brand of shisha could in the end be your favorite.

We try out ways with coals, bowls, hookah in various sizes.

I’ve been buying shisha that in the past was¬† not to my liking and it seems so much that often I’m pleasantly¬† suprised!¬† A brand name I didn’t like before or a certain flavour that¬† now is so great. Did they improve on it? Probably with the competition so high and more companies on the market manufacturing shisha¬† you’ll find that what you thought was junk is now terrific.

Our tastes develope and as we become more experienced in smoking what maybe you were smoking out of your  first hookah is now supreme. . Or before you packed too much in a bowl or burned it with too much coal.

There are even more reasons to re-try some of the old baddies. At worst if it stil proves to be a bummer shisha you can trade it off with friends or a group.

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Hookah Today and High-Tech online

You know you have a problem.
Sitting at the home of a friend, he’s almost finished preparing the hookah set up. Clay bowl is full, foil and holes made, now you are taking your first puff, your second …..
(“WHAT flavour is this I’m smoking”?, you ask yourself).
So you make out a mental check list.”Do I have a cold, a stuffed nose?” (no). “Maybe this is Zagloul shisha from Nakhla, the non-flavoured only tobacco and glycerine flavour without honey-(mu’assel ) and flavourings added? ” you imagine?
“So Abu James, enough with the suprises already. WHAT flavour did you put on?”
“You mean you can’t tell?” answers James.
“Not really”.
“Well, this is the cherry flavour of “TEEZ AL-KALB” brand company ” says your host.
(I will tell you about their shisha at the end of the post…..)

So what is the whole problem anyways? Not all of hookah is just smoking and enjoying your session only. The set up of the hookah, keeping it clean, in good working shape, ordering new appliances, shisha tobacco learning more and more about hookah, its history, tips on smoking what to do or not are so very important to the pleasure of the hookah experience.
Isn’t it strange that in this very hi-tech age we live in the best made hookahs ever are comming out all the time. You have only to go online to see thousands of hookahs in all sizes, shapes and brands with designs never made before but so available to us all.
.From China in the last few years has come a lot of technically well made hokahs with no air gaps, better made parts and gaskets that fit perfectly or screw-on types of never before made waterpipes. Even these are sold well in the Middle-Eastern countries.
India makers of narghile like “UnivacGroup” manufacture beautiful lines of hookahs.
Take a look at the many thousands of different designed water bowls. Some with smoked colored glass and filigree steel added on patterns that are burnished to a real silver-like touch of class.
Who could buy these but the very rich who asked special articians of the time to make them by hand? Now you may get them online.
With the online advent of hookah, the competion between companies and brands is huge, so more types of hookahs for every pocket and means are available.What price you decide to pay for your investment is the main concern.
What kind of aestethics for the hookah? Buy a bowl with glass, or cut glass? Of acrylic material or quartz? Of gold colored steel or real gold.
Notice there are from every company the “Premium” hookahs, “Premium ” tobacco etc.
With better science the coals from Europe, China, America, India and Japan etc have given us the “quick-lighting” coals, better tasting, less bad taste or none at all.Hopefully less dangerous is one of their aims and a class of charcoal company competition.
The different brands of shisha tobacco are huge. In the “olden times” for sure there were home made shishas to be bought in any market place, with the best brands sold to the Pashas,Kings,Princes of each realm along with richer people.
Today ,really only the price you are willing to pay and the brand you choose is up to you.
Going on the internet, you can find the most exotic brands of shisha if you want to pay the price from India,Arab countries, and in the last few years from America utilizing the cultured Virginia tobaccos from the 1600’s.
All the shisha tobacco brand companies are using chemistry to make the same basic mix for sheesha which is glycerine,honey,tobacco and flavourings. In the recent past each company has added many new not -before available flavours making them from trial and error with the “right” ammount of flavourings to give it the great taste, but not to overpower your senses.
So here we are with that “Problem” you have at the home of Abu James. You still haven’t figured out if this cherry flavoured sheesha of the “TEEZ AL-KALB” company tobacco brand is just a “weak sister” or if the charcoals are stale and killed the taste.
Maybe Abu James hasn’t cleaned his hookah well, or at all, or the water has been in too long and effects the taste.
If you really want to know, you must go to someone from the Arab countries to ask. It can’t be ANY Arab.
If you go to an Arab who does not order sheesha online or doesn’t smoke and say
“What is Al-Amir” brand? He will ask you “In accordance with WHAT?” “Amir” can be “His Highness” or “Prince” etc.

Can you tell me what” Saet-Safa brand ” means? He or she will think you are on drugs!
SAET means “an hour with”
SAFA can be a girl’s name, or the name of an order of religious Moslem sect as are the “Bretheren of Purity” from Iraqi origin. SAFA means PURITY so it means “An Hour with Purity”.
Nice name for a brand of shisha. Nice name for an opium den in Shainghai,China of the British colonial Mandate times.
The girl’s name in America similar to Arabic name SAFA (Pure)is “Chastity”.
Don’t go to her house an ask her father “Can I have an hour with Chastity”. He will maul you like a grizzly bear!
So be careful, you want to find out the name of this brand of shisha smoke, ask only an Arab speaker with a good sense of humour!
Now I am going into my stash of quicly dwindling sheesha to pull out some SAET-SAFA and have “an Hour of Pleasure”.

http://www.smoking-hookah.com/Products/Shisha/Saet-Safa-Premium-Tobacco-100gr.asp
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“Pipe Dreams”

A pipe dream:
A perfectly clear clay tobacco-shisha bowl? Not yet invented (except for the semi clear acrylic bowls which cost a big $ bundle and break easily too).

So, how to tell if you smoked all the shisha in the bowl?
I guess its up to experience.

1) how much did you pack?
What is usually for you a half-hours smoke? 40 minutes went buy and your tongue is feeling fuzzy-you are long ago finished and if you have a good burning coal, you are getting plain heat and ashes taste.
2)did you pack loosly or too tight?

If tight it will burn for sure, mostly at the bottom.

3)type of shisha being smoked.

Al-Fakher, Al-Ouns ,Al-Qemah,Roman,Fumari,Afzal are loooong ongoing good smokes.
15 grams lightly packed of Al Fakher,Al-Ouns,Al-Qemah,Roman will approximately smoke 45-60 minutes.
The same ammount of Al-Waha, Al-Sultan, El-Nakhla,El-Basha
(same company) will smoke 20-30 minutes lightly packed.
If you have been going on longer, its a burn!
These are just a few hints.

4) when you’ve finished smoking EACH time look at what is left over.
If its ash, then next time don’t smoke that gram ammount too long. Or get a bigger bowl.
The gigantic “party bowl” which I mainly use is big enough for 30-35 grams, and since its bad to add shisha up to the top where it touches the foil and will burn, I still have room left over.
http://www.smoking-hookah.com/Products/Accessories/Giant-party-clay-bowl.asp?agent_camp=10540001

I always check the remains of any bowl to see if its over burnt. There should be left a bit of lightly cooked shisha at the bottom remaining.Throw it out!

With so many shisha brands out there herbal and regular, each company brand has its own burning time.
It depends mainly on how much glycerine is in the mixture.
You’ll find Nakhal is a dryer brand. The premium brands are dripping and smell so good even before you put them in the bowl!
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Where do you buy a hookah and tobacco?

Some of us buy, if they have the luxury to be near an “Ethnic store” their hookahs and tobacco mu’assel there from store owners they know and come back to with faulty hookahs or stale tobacco shisha.
The variety is far from as large and varied as theonline stores, but its maybe a bit cheaper, and maybe close by.
If not, you can go on the www/searchengine , write in “hookah” and you’ve got the gigantic listing of pages of many shisha companies online.
No wonder almost all the companies names start with the word “Hookah”
Hookah Master.com
HookahCompany.com,Hookah4Less.com
Smoking-Hookah.com (vive’ la differance’)
HookahshishaCentral.com
Fumari(whata).com
Hookah Hub. com
Hukah Mafeesh.com
Gefilteh-Fish.com (a “small” fish joke.)
EastCoastHookah.com (Authentic company)
WestcoastHookah.com (Authentic company)
TheSouthWillRiseAgainHookah.com (sorry, its Friday)
NorthernLightsHookah.com(its still Friday)

Let me say right here :
in Alaska,the Arctic Circle,Greenland, and Hibbing or Duluth Minnesota you should not smoke your hookah at the beach.Ever.
In the winter you will have a coooool cold smoke, but it will freeze in 4 minutes or less.

In the summer the mosquitos of the north are as big as fruit bats and wombies sometimes. They must be related to zombies too, since a bite from them and they draw a lot of blood,”blood bro”.
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