Learning how to set up your hookah properly is essential in order to experience the best flavor, smoking session length and amount of smoke.

First, make sure that your hookah is airtight. Then add clean water to the base of the hookah. About one inch from the bottom of the downstem (the pipe inside of the glass base) is perfect.  Once these two provisions are made, you can move on to loading the hookah bowl. Start by taking your shisha, or flavored tobacco, and breaking it into small clumps. Place these clumps loosely in the bowl, and make sure the clumps stay slightly below the rim; otherwise it will overflow when you try to put the foil on top of the bowl. Make sure that the shisha isn’t packed down too much inside the bowl, because you want breathing room for all of the air in the bowl to go to the shisha for the best flavor.

The next step is to put foil over the bowl filled with shisha. Take time to make sure the foil is pulled taught over the bowl, and fold it down well over the rim to make the setup as airtight as it can possibly be. Next, for ventilation, you will need to poke many small holes in the foil covering the bowl. The best tools to use for this would be a safety pin or a toothpick. Poke many holes in the foil, but make sure that the holes aren’t too big, otherwise ash could fall down through these holes as your coal burns above.

Now you are ready to put the bowl on your hookah and place the coals on top of the foil.

From my personal experience, lighting the coals properly is often the trickiest part of setting up a hookah for smoking. Be sure that you’ve bought the right sized coals for your hookah, and read the instructions on the package. Make sure that each coal is entirely lit, and place them on top of the foil.

At this point, you can test your hookah.

If the flavor gets too strong, remove the coals for a little while and let it cool down. During a hookah session, also make sure to move the coals around with a pair of tongs. Every ten or fifteen minutes should be enough. Always following these steps will provide for a great hookah smoking experience.

Hookah, which is actually the name of the device used to smoke tobacco out of works like this:

Hookah or water pipes start with a bowl on top which is then filled with flavored tobacco or shisha.  A layer of foil is then placed on top of the bowl containing the tobacco.  Hot coals are then placed on top of the bowl and in turn the coals will heat up the tobacco.  This causes the tobacco in the bowl to begin to smoke.

The process of smoking hookah is similar but different than smoking cigarettes.

The difference is that instead of burning the tobacco you are merely heating it up.  To smoke the hookah you take the hose which is connected to the vase and suck on it.  The act of sucking on the hose lowers the air pressure from the hookahs vase and draws the smoke down from the smoldering tobacco.

The smoke is able to reach the hookah smoker because of the metal stem running through the hookah itself.

The bottom of the stem in the vase is submerged in water so that when you’re sucking the smoke from the bowl it emerges from the stem underwater.  The smoke is then able to emerge from the water rising up to the vases air space.  At the top of the vase there is an opening for the hose which takes the smoke in the air space in the vase and carries it through to the mouth space to the smoker.

Tonic, the shisha company behind popular tobacco flavors such as Raspberry Cheesecake and After Sex, has just announced a new line of flavor, which are being labeled as “Made in the USA”. Tonic is offering some interesting names and flavors: Romance, Kama Sutra, Bada Bing, Babylon, Bellylicious, Hitman, Minty Dreams, Da Vinci, and Virgin Strawberry.

The New 2011 Tonic Shisha Flavors!

Babylon (Blueberry & Sweet Mint)                             Bada Bing (Mixed Berries & Fruit Mix)

Bellylicious (Tropical Fruit Mix)                                         Da Vinci (Peach & Fruit Mix)

Hitman (Mixed Fruit & Tropical Fruit)                                 Kama Sutra (Pomegranate & Fruit Mix)

Minty Dreams (Mint & Fruit Mix)                                      Romance (Sweet Mint & Fruit Mix)

Virgin Strawberry (Mixed Strawberries)

The description of the flavors leaves us guessing about the quality, with most descriptions using the phrase “fruit mixture”. We will have to wait until we can get our hands on some of this shisha before we can really see what it’s all about.

Let’s hope Tonic avoids the controversy that Social Smoke had last March when they released a line of shisha claiming it was made in the USA.  They were meet with skepticism from competitors but were later able to prove that their tobacco was produced and flavored here in the USA.

You can buy Tonic’s New Shisha Flavors from Hookah-Shisha for $18.95 [250g]

Social Smoke Passion Fruit Mojito

Social Smoke has quickly become one of the top shisha producers in the world due to their variety of accurate and consistent flavors that always leave you wanting more.  Today we are reviewing Social Smokes recent flavor Passion Fruit Mojito which offers up their take on the popular drink.

Smell & Flavor: The smell right out of the jar reminded us of fresh limes and passion fruit, it had a very subtle mint smell that was more noticeable once smoked. The flavor of the smoke tasted just like a mojito, you could really pick up the lime and passion fruit flavors and the mint came within about 10 minutess of lighting the coals.

Smoke: The smoke was very thick and robust, very smooth and packed great flavor.

Buzz: We got a moderate buzz from this flavor that turned into a light buzz by the 45 minute mark.

Duration: It lasted just over an hour in a small phunnel before loosing flavor.

Overall the Social Smoke Passion Fruit Mojito shisha flavor offered up aa out of this world flavor that we will be trying again soon, this has been one of our favorite flavors from Social Smoke yet.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

You can buy Social Smoke Passion Fruit Mojito from Hookah-Shisha for $10.95 [100g]

Nakhla is always proving why they’re the oldest shisha manufacturer in the world; their strawberry shisha flavor packs a strong and accurate strawberry flavor that will keep you coming back for more.

Smell & Flavor: The smell right out of the jar reminds you of fresh-cut strawberries. The taste of the shisha is the best part because it’s one of the most accurate strawberry flavors on the market.

Smoke: As always with Nakhla, the smoke was thick and robust and very smooth.

Buzz: Strong buzz initially that turned into a moderate buzz by the end.

Durartion: About 1.5 hours in a standard clay bowl.

Nakhla is known for their high quality shisha, and the Nakhla Strawberry shisha is no exception with it’s accurate and very tasty strawberry flavor.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

You can buy Nakhla Strawberry from Hookah-Shisha for $10.95 [250g]

Social Smoke Arabian Nights shisha brings us an Arabic coffee and cardamom flavor that is out of this world.

Smell & Flavor: Right out of the jar you immediately pick up on the coffee and cardamom spice scent. The flavor of the shisha is a sweet and spicy coffee and cardamom flavor that has a slight chocolate taste that will keep you coming back for more. The spice of the cardamom is subtle, but really brings out the coffee flavor in the shisha.

Smoke: Big, billowy clouds were easily blown with this shisha. The smoke was very smooth and tasty.

Buzz: Moderate buzz, not as strong as some Social Smoke flavors.

Duration: Just over an hour in a standard clay bowl.

Overall we really enjoyed  Social Smoke Arabian Nights Shisha due to it’s high quality and unique and the consistent Arabic coffee and cardamom flavor it provided.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

You can buy Social Smoke Arabian Nights from Hookah-Shisha for $10.95 for 100g.

Al Tawareg Citrus Mint offers a flavorful taste of lemon mixed with a mild mint flavor.

Al Tawareg Citrus Mint offers a realistic lemon flavor that is tart but not candied flavored like other popular lemon shishas.

Smell & Flavor: Right out of the box you pick up the strong lemon scent with a mild mint flavor. The flavor describes it as a citrus mint but we only picked up a lemon flavor instead of the typical citrus medley.

Smoke: The smoke quality was better than some of the other Al Tawareg flavors we have tired, the smoke was sufficient but not very impressive.

Buzz: The buzz was moderate, but very relaxing.

Duration: Just over an hour in a standard Egyptian bowl. The flavor was quickly lost after the first hour.

Overall the Al Tawareg Citrus Mint shisha offered a unique take on citrus flavored shisha by providing a realistic tasting and tart lemon flavor with mild mint undertones.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

You can buy Al Tawareg Wild Mango from Hookah-Shisha for $2.45 [50g]

I decided to try out double hookah bowls filled with Al Fakher Chocolate in one and Al Fakher Cherry in the other. The Chocolate was a bit overpowering so it was difficult to judge the Cherry. There was a bit of a Cherry aftertaste but the Chocolate was at the forefront.  For those of you that like a thick smoke the Al Fakher has you covered.  They both had great flavor.
Be kind, we did this spur of the moment so we didn’t have a lot to say and it’s a bit awkward but we’d love to hear some feedback.

Purchase Al Fakher Cherry or Al Fakher Chocolate and try them out for yourself:

You can purchase Al Fakher Cherry and Chocolate at Hookah-Shisha $3.25 (50g)!

This works great with other fruit flavored shisha.