Month: July 2007

eBay articles warns against hookah and shisha scams

I found 2 articles posted on eBay  written by a person who obviously is a large seller or a member of the Egyptian hookah cartel with his own business in mind.

http://search.reviews.ebay.com/members/iseetreasures_W0QQuqtZg

One post warns of a scam¬† to sell Herbal non-tobacco shisha as mixed with tobacco in reality according to “lab tests”. He mentions that there are only 2 brands being sold called “herbal non tobacco”. “only”. One he mentions is “Soex” from India, the second is “Black Label Premium”. He says that there are only 2 brands “Period”.

I myself found a third which is labled “High-Life” brand! For all I know, all three could be made by “Soex” of India which I know makes “Soex” in India. Or maybe “High-Life” is made by one of these 2 brands, or maybe it’s “for real”.

What the writer is trying to say is that you are being cheated if you think it’s non-tobacco.

I don’t have a labratory in my back pocket so I don’t know.

The second post says to” beware of the Chinese made hookah scam”.¬† The writer mentions that often made in China (which one, and where?)¬† often label their products as “Egyptian made hookahs” and that they are made on assembly line by people who don’t have generations of passed down hand made hookah knowledge. They even show¬† a photo of an aluminum made shaft in various solid colors.

Having spent about 3 hours today on the internet searching for hookah made products, and  finding many hookah manufacturers who  offer to sell their wares in great bulk wholesale I know and knew that the facts in this article are wrong and way mis-represente.

Even when you go online to any hookah product company like “Smoking-Hookah.com” “SothSmoke” “Hookah and Shisha central”, not to mention hookahcompany.com which offers the larget variety of hookahs, they all say “This is a hookah made in India”, “This glass vase is blown and cut by hand in Bohemia”, ‘this is a Chinese made hookah”. “Egytian style hookah” “Syrian style hookah”.

The simple fact is, yes the Chinese (count em) make hookahs on assembly line, butnot all are made of the same cheap aluminum, stainless steel, brass, iron  or narostah  material .

Look at the pictures online to see. There are hookahs made  and sold all over the Middle East by either Indian or Chinese manufacturers. If you want a simple,  light weight hookah, or an exclusive  premium hookah they build them. The amount of money will determine which quality hookah you can buy.Syria hardly makes hookahs  anymore, while Egypt still does.

The idea is, no one is scamming or cheating anyone. It says “Chinese made” or “Moroccan¬† made”etc.

The scam is in the misinterpretation of facts by this eBay poster.

I myself would not buy anything on eBay. I’ve seen “$10.00 hookahs, why pay more?” Really! Lets be logical, what kind of hookah will you get for¬† $10? Is it large, maybe 24 inches high,but with a bad weld on it that¬† cuts down 50% on the suction?

Why would I buy anything that I can’t hold in my hands or see?¬† Even buying online hookahs from the reputable sellers is the same. Unless you have bought previously from that company, and you know it has a great guarantee to return faulty merchandise?

But eBay for me is one of the most vulgar names I know. These 2 articles posted prove it.

javascript:tinyMCE.execInstanceCommand(‘mce_editor_0′,’mceLink’,true);

Make Your Own Wind Cover Screen

Its amazing to me how little wind it takes to bother when you smoke hookah. Just a little air movement and I can’t even¬† use my lighter to fire up a quick lighting charcoal, let alone with a match.

Often I’ve forgone using my fan even¬† on a hot day.

The answer for lighting a charcoal at the beach or outside and keep the heat from the coal  flying off in a very light breeze is a wind cover. You can get nice heavy duty tin ones online. They are quite cheap and made to fit the tobacco ash-tray exactly.

I use a heavy-duty aluminum foil cover such the likes as a used aluminum meat roast cooking pan, or buy the  heavy foil in a roll like regular  aluminum. It must be the heavy duty type or it will blow over just as easily as the coals will, dumping your shisha, the burning coal and probably breaking the ceramic bowl.

Take the aluminum tray and flatten down the sides, but be careful of jagged edges when you do that. Bend the edges over and make yourself a circular¬† roll as high as you want it I made mine 7.5 inches high for the large hookah. Keep in mind that it can’t be¬† a larger circumference than the ash- tray itself. I use on my large hookah a very large round¬† aluminum pie tray with a hole cut large enogh in the middle to let it over the shaft but not too much so that it won’t catch ashes. It might not be so pretty, but it holds my gigantic wind cover and catches all ashes so they don’t fall on the rug, or onto the hookah.

The circumference of my wind screen cover is  15 inches, the heigth  7.5 inches with a 4.5 inch diameter.Does a great job of keeping the  coal heat right there where I want it.

It can also be fashioned funnel shape with the diameter smaller at the top.

At the beach you won’t want to drag along a piece of large aluminum¬† foil. Get a tin can and cut out the top and bottom. You are finished. It won’t fly away in the wind. Its also a good size for mini and junior sized hookahs.

Or…check the wind direction and sit behind an outside wall–hopefully in the sun or shade if its too hot out!

Hookah 1

Do All Hookah Sizes Smoke the Same Way?

Do all hookah sizes smoke the same way?

Its like comparing an apple to an orange, really.

If you take a shower and find that the only clean towel left is a washcloth size towel, its going to do almost just as good a job of absorbing the water, but you can’t wrap yourself up in it very well!

Same thing if a person has a bowl of soup to eat and only has a teaspoon to eat it with, It’ll just take longer but with the biggest fork in the world you won’t manage.

How about the time I had a friend over to play ping-pong and all we found around to use as a ball was an old tennis ball? It can be done, and its harder to control or get english on it, but at least we had a few games.

With hookah there are 3 basic sizes: Mini, Junior and Large.

I’ll deal first with the mini.

The mini isn’t something for little people to smoke with . Its a full fledged Hookah. They come in different sizes ranging from around “7-10” inches high.

(When any and all of the companies write “18 inch” or 26 inch” or “32 inch” they mean to say that its been measured with and including the regular standard size tobacco bowl which is exactly adding 2 and 1/4 inch. Thats a big percentage of the measurement on a “7 inch” mini hookah.

Then each and every online company will tag on exactly 1 and 1/2 inches to be offered to “Abu Ali ” as a wishful thinking” offering.

So…your 10 inch mini is minus 2 and 1/4 inches of tobacco bowl ,1 and 1/2 inches for lowering their shipping costs.

Since every manufacturer and selling company online adds on the measure of the tobacco bowl, and the 1/2 inch for naught, then at least you know their language and understand that you are not being cheated. Its relative from one company to the next.

One 8 incher is of a small glass half- bowl which screws onto a half metal bowl attached to metal ready for smoking tobacco bowl with metal pipe to smoke from.I bought one and was sorry since the shisha burned my throat. Its only good for smoking weed or other like non-legals.There is room for a bit of water, not much. Bad buy if you want to take it and smoke shisha tobacco at the beach,its not for you.

I today recieved a quick order from EastCoastHookah.com of one 8 and a half inch Pumpkin” shaped ” mini (28m”m). Including the measurement of the tobacco bowl. Its listed at “about 10 inches”. Bravo.The bowl is a bit more than 2 and a half inches high, circumference around 9 and a half inches. It does hold a lot of water.

The shaft is strong solid metal and can be disassembled in 3 parts.Its shaped very nicely with 2 nobs. The shaft is about 3 and a half inches high. I measured all these myself. Now add to it the 2 and a quarter inch tobacco bowl and the 2 and a half inches for “Abu Ali” and you’ll have you’re “about 10 inch high mini hookah”.

It comes with a very well made leather Syrian hose in thin diameter but pulls strong, 31 inches long.

The mini I received also has a nice, strong padded on the inside little mini suitcase with bare room for the hookah and hose. You’ll need to take the shaft apart if you want to stick in tongs , tobacco and a bowl.

Now how does it smoke? Mine is a one hoser, but as you probably know, you can unscrew the air pressure nob off and add a hose attachment if you’ve bought, and then you’ll have a two-hoser!

That could be a great idea since with this mini the “tail is wagging the dog”.I put the mini inside a small pot so that it will not tip over, but that didn’t stop it from moving around Just barely moving my hose had too great effect on the sturdiness of the mini hookah.

I couldn’t enjoy the smoke from being afraid it would tip

What I plan to do is to take a heavy duty cardboard box, cut a circular hole 9 and a half inches around, and the mini will fit exactly into that and keep it very, very sturdy. Then it could even be placed on a table. (Same can be done with plywood-better you can paint the wood too.) A heavy duty metal bowl or pot would also be good providing it was the size of the measurement around of the water bowl bottle at it’s widest point, or even a bit more but not too much so that it can fall over.

I smoked the “mini 10 inch” simultaneously with a “junior size” hookah I also received at actual size of barely 15 inch high including the 2 and a fourth inch shisha bowl as well as my “32 inch high” “Chiller hookah” which really does make the difference on a cold smoke.This is the second time I’ve ever smoked more than one hookah at a time and the first time 3. It was only in the name of science and not pleasure that now I can report on all 3.

The “10 inch mini” with its great hose still had bad suction and the shisha tasted pretty bad. The bowl was a regular 2 and a fourth inch high bowl, but probably for that little amount of water I should have started with half a coal. Each hookah got a full coal.

(Later I did put 3 straws cut to length so that in each direction they hit the bottom of the mini bowl and splayed outward.This lengthened greatly the shaft into the water and the suction is now much better, but it’s still kind of a hot smoke.I have the mini on a table and its more stable than on the floor.)

The 15 inch “junior size”, basically a copy of the mini, but it uses a standard size hose, holds its weight firmly and barely moved a little.Its very well made also.

The actual pull of the “Junior” when I sucked air on the hose was very powerful, even more so than the 24 inch chiller.(I gave chiller a large diameter hose and maybe need to add water. )

So of the best smoke, the “junior “won. The larger hookah had a cool shaft ,cooler even though the water was a day old and tepid. The shaft of the Junior was quite warm.

I think that the problem of the “mini” is that its lower part of the shaft in the water is way too short. I’m going to try adding a folding plastic drinking straw into the bottom of the shaft to lengthen it, just as I did so sucssesfully when I did that to my large hookah with 4 cut straws.(As mentioned above, the straws really helped!).

I used 3 fruit flavours while smoking and I could taste the difference between all 3 smoking “Al Sultan” brand of apple in the mini, banana-milk in the Junior and Orange in the Large 24 inch Chiller hookah.

For a really good comparison I should have used only one flavour, but I’m not a masochist . At least NOW I know also that every “Al Sultan” flavour is different from its other flavours.

Friends and neighbors my ” 32 inch high chiller hookah” just lost 8 inches of its written heighth when I now measured it at 24 inches with shisha bowl. But as Alfred E. Neuman used to say “What, me worry”? Since it really smokes well and cools off the smoke.

Results: The mini is a go anywhere hookah if you are out for a picnic or trip. Especially if you have a padded case or bag for it. The smoking is really nice.  The Junior smokes great and can easily be brought out to your back yard or camping trip. It dis-assembles.  The larger hookahs are great for the home and for multi-hose smokers or even a few people using one hose since its so sturdy but probably a hassle to take out of the house unless you are willing to dis-assemble and clean it back and forth.

So size is just a matter of style and personal taste.¬† I have no real reason to use the mini unless I want to use it outdoors. The junior I’ll use mainly at home but why not take 2 when we’re camping or having a picnic?

The chiller 24 inch I keep right next to my p.c.

Hookah 1

I drink-therefore I am

Before you get upset at my horrible pun don’t get too mad, its been done in so many different forms by people before.

Its extra special to drink when you smoke hookah. First since the body needs fluids, its hotter in summer so you need to have lots of liquids. Are these fluids getting to all parts of your body though?

Imagine if you drank 4/5th of your liquid needs . Does that mean that every organ and vessle of the body is getting 4/5th its right amount ?

4/5 for the brain, 4/5th for the heart etc? What if all the organs are getting 100% of their fluid needs but the 2 kidneys are not? Thats really unhealthy and theoretically can’t really happen. The 4/5 is getting shared more or less all over the body and those 4/5¬† isn’t enough.

When you smoke hookah, though, there IS a situation where the body is getting all its fluid needs except for one area- the mouth, palate and throat. For them its like being in a waterless desert. The hookah smoke might be cool, but it does dry out the whole throat area and you have to drink that much more to replenish  it.

You can drink cold or hot, it doesn’t matter as long as you are hydrating the body enough at all times and must drink a lot while you have the hookah. (I wouldn’t try milk).

Hookah 1