Learning All About Hookahs

September 7, 2011 – I have always been what many people considered to be “naïve”. I like to think of it as more of living in a state of innocence. My parents raised my siblings and me very conservatively, and as such, I don’t know a lot about things like beers, wines and hookahs. I was in college before I saw my first hookah, it was sitting on the lawn of a frat house and I noticed it as I was walking past on my way to class. I was, therefore, extremely surprised when a high school friend of mine recently confessed to me that she had used a hookah to smoke for years and that she had several hookahs in her house. Not knowing much about the subject, I decided to investigate further. It seems that hookahs have been in use for quite some time, the first hookah being invented in the late 1500s.

Many people use them today to smoke shisha, which is tobacco created specifically for use in hookahs. Shisha comes in a plethora of flavors including cherry, blueberry and well, flavors that are so exotic that you aren’t quite sure what they are. The flavor of shisha, as smoked through hookahs, is more potent and has a cleaner taste than that of the smoke from traditional cigarettes. This is due mostly to the process in which the shisha is burned, but we will get to that later. What is more important to know now is that the flavor is clearer than other methods of smoking, and as such, it does not inhibit food consumption after use. In fact, many people enjoy using a hookah while they are eating because the flavor of the shisha can be used to enhance the flavor of the food that is being eaten in the same way that wine is used to enhance the flavors of a meal.

There are many people that believe that smoking through a hookah is healthier than smoking cigarettes or cigars. If this is true, it is not because the hookah makes the smoke any less harmful. No, if it is healthier, then it is because the use of a hookah does not inhibit the user from eating in the same way that cigarettes do. Oftentimes, the smoke, as inhaled from a cigarette, perverts the flavors of the food being eaten, making them taste gritty and muffled. However, the cooling process that the smoke goes through when using a hookah does not create this same gritty flavor for the user. This allows the user to eat nutritious foods after or even along with smoking through the hookah. The hookah is a fairly simple piece of equipment. On the top of the hookah sits a pot in which the shisha is burned. There is a pipe which connects the burning pot to a partially filled bowl of water. The pipe ends below the waterline of the pot; the smoke must travel through the water in order to escape the pipe.

From there, the smoke travels upwards into the open area of the bowl above the water. At the top of the bowl, above the waterline, there is a hose through which the user can inhale the cooled smoke. Smoking shisha through a hookah is becoming more and more popular around the world. There are bars opening throughout the country in which people can come to enjoy the experience of smoking through a hookah while they are socializing and enjoying a meal. My friend loves these social hotspots; she tells me that she will frequent them at least once a week. As for me, I can’t say that I particularly want to smoke from a hookah; I will leave that to my friend. However, I’m happy that now I can have a respectable conversation with my friend about her life.

 

 

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