Category: quick ighting coals

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
Hookah 1

“Salty Dog” (or) sick as a dog

A friend complained about headaches and  being really nauseous. Went to lay down.

A bit later I felt nauseous too.

Now, it¬† was NOT from too much nicotine , since I didn’t have any of those symptoms¬† which are a headache, yes nauseum, but I was noticing the taste of my premium shisha recently smoked was now tasting like charcoal. The other smoke I had before, using my favorite brand of recently found coals¬† was also tasting like charcoal!

The second I stopped smoking, the symptoms went away, but an hour later I still have the taste of coal on my tongue.

This post will be a work in progress in which I came to find out probably a few of the reasons why this hapened to us.
One resaon is “I should have known better”

Nicotine¬† stomach takes longer than that before it gets better, and I haven’t had that in 4 years.

Usually a kid’s first cigarette will do that to him.It must be the Lord’s way of telling us not to smoke ever a second¬† one!

At the cost of sounding hipycritical (I am), I know for a fact that at least  5-10 young  close relatives of mine smoke hookah.In the Arab countries  I know its widespread to smoke nargileh amongst the young. Keeps the hunger pains away too!

Haven’t been¬† to India or Pakistan, but they have the “Hubbly Bubbly” before any culture and kids smoke.

Back to the lousy batch of charcoals. I noticed a few coals out of a package of ten coals last week which were “Bad”.

I keep my coals in a plastic bag or two after unwrapping the  bag of ten.

For sure by keeping them unwrapped  they get bad.

Why? Same as shisha and marshmellows for that mater, or table salt. They will¬† readily absorb much moisture from the air!¬† You’ll see, that is why we put¬† some grains of¬† uncooked rice in with the salt, they absorb the moisture¬† that the salt in the shaker would.

I live  in a very moist area in a low mountain valley which keeps the moisture trapped.

And we see from the article brought down ,above that those charcoal briquettes are made with sawdust which is swept up¬† from the floor and can be quite filthy, and sodium nitrate (that’s found in instant soups and cured meats like salami, blogna,¬† some smokey links, authentically Kosher meat to draw out all of the blood ,which is forbidden to eat. Its got lots of sodium (Duh) in it, and after eating some of the above,even the¬† instant soup mix, I gain in one half day about 2 kilos, or 5 and a half lbs. from the water I drank¬† and obsorbs in the body tissues like a sponge!

So do not eat your charcoals.

Last week I ambled into our community’s general store and saw forthe first time a 2 kilo bag of¬† “Vegetable Coals”. I bought them with the¬† smoking in mind. From this article I see that it is termed ” Lump charcoal. It was hard to light, longer than¬† Jordanian¬† lemon wood natural coals I’ve used and enjoyed, which also take 2-3 minutes to light and make my wife crazy since I lit them on the gas range and smelled up the house.

Outside you’d need to put them into a low fire, or a portable small camping gas range to light the lemon type coals.

The vegetable lump charcoal took even longer to light and not thoroughly lit, either.

Here is a web page created by a particular company warning not to use quick lighting stuff. (Lets keep in mind that the facts here are to serve that firm’s intrests) :

http://virtualweberbullet.com/charcoal.html

Lets see if our coals use that for the quick lighting outer surface.

And what else is in the coals.

(See”hookah history” in that section here)

Gotta be  saltpetre in that charcoal they make!You know, the stuff in gun powder to make it explode.

Its NOT true that armies used it in thier food to keep the soldiers physical desires to a low level, cuz it doesn’t¬† effect male¬† sexual prowness.Might be someone’s excuse.

I’m doing some research online to find out just what’s in the quick lighting charcoals (coals) that most of us use.

Here is the running progress:

came accross this for charcoal briquettes which are more for cooking on the bar-b-que :

http://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0411b&L=safety&P=2974

Some fine ideas about quick lites
They mention potassium nitrate as what makes the sparks ignite

http://www.incensewarehouse.com/Burning-Incense-
3_ep_50-1.html

Rolland-Chinese name,no?
http://www.made-in-china.com/catalog/item999i132/Coal-Charcoal-11.html
Here I am going to turn you to Shishainfo which is “Shisha info”.
I had seen some of their work a few years ago, but they have up-graded and this website is more than amazing.
I take my hat off to them .
Read about their explanations for hookah set-up, hints terrific tips etc.
http://www.shishainfo.com/hookah-shisha-setup.htm
Here I urge you to read the short but sweet hookah-set-up pages at at ShishaInfo.com
http://www.shishainfo.com/hookah-shisha-setup.htm
I will re-iterate a few of thier tips and great points, and probably some of these are the cause of this happening to me for the first time in 3 or 4 years.
Store the coal in cool, airtight place, I do that, but its been madly humid here and maybe they absorbed the moisture?
Put your coals on the outside of the bowl .Moving them around the rim.”The center is the last place the coals should be put”. He or she mentions that the top will scorch and smell the whole sessiom up. Well, guess what I di tonight? I used Smoking-Hookah.com ‘s gigantic brown “Party Bowl” in which you can fit the state of Texas in, along with a slice of all the Michigan Upper Penninsula too. I use it so that I can putin a nice ammount, never tamped down, air flowing well, and below the surface of the tinfoil so that it will not cook and scorch.
“Center of bowl” last place to put the coal?
Well, I heaped them in the middle. Why?
Keep those coals around the outside rim.
They mention an idea I’ve never heard. Punch holes in the foil with a toothpick (done that before), 5-6 holes. Pretty small bowl there! Its mentioned that if the suction is too hard, add some more, with the nice addition here: maybe during smoking the holes got blocked and your shisha is going up the chimney.
Thats why I don’t use anything smaller than a small thin nail, but mostly use the metal sticker from the tongs which I took from the tongs after being lightly burnt when using the tongs to movethe coals and the metal sticker got in the way.
Its my favorite hole puncher.
I’ve noticed that with 3 tongs, of the same manufacturer, the sticker and tongs are exactly alike,but the tip of one sticker is more blunt and so the hole comes too big.
I use a lot of holes in the party bowl, maybe I should try just in the center or vice versa.
Which shows that when you (I) don’t use brains, experience will force me to find out the best way after messing up once.
Again, I will mention about the tiny or medium circular ash trays that go under the clay tobacco head.
The coals if round upon falling will prove that physics law of “a matter in motion will continue that speed and motion until its worn down by friction or gravity, or mommy’s white carpet”
I learned something in 7th grade science back in around 1966.

¬†by mentioning the rolling round charcoal which will continue to roll until it burns the floor a bit, or the rug a lot, or someone’s pants for too long. Known fact. Did you ever see a coal drop and not do damage? Rare!
In researching for this post I heard about “the Lord Charcoal.” com. which has a coal that is not round and hence will not roll.
http://www.bernardsformalwear.com/Charcoal%20Grey%20Stroller.htm
(wrong this is the “Charcoal Grey Tuxedo” April Fools.)
Here is the real info and link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mens-Lord-Taylor-Charcoal-Gray-Suit-48L-Pants-40-33_W0QQitemZ200120435387QQcmdZViewItem
alright,I couldn’t resist.
Here you see it from the Hookah Forum com

http://www.hookahforum.com/index.php?showtopic=696
(I see good old Malthazar is doing research and benefiting world-wide shisha smokers of all race and creed alike!)
Have used lemon tree woods an natural coals which I’ll bet have at least some compressed sawdust in them, but they are round at one side and flat on the bottom.

Which is were my grocer’s wisdom comes into play.
As I loathe the tiny ash trays sold, and would rather sacrifice beauty for pragmatism, I bought a 8 or so wide aluminum foil pie tin. I didn’t want to make the inner hole too big, so I took my own pee-wee tray and wanted to trace its inner hole on the foil to cut.
You can’t believe my suprise when I found the inner round circle marked groove already on the 8 small piesections and my original as tray were exactly the same circumfrence!
99% of the falling coals are captured and 100% of the ash.

And finally especially for fire prevention as hookah smokers alike.
“Who is wise,? he who sees what is being born”.
A SMART person knows that coals burn, and will be careful, but a WISE person knows that when the coal falls in his lap ,or on the family heirloom $23,000 Original Persiam rug he’d better buy a quick plane ticket to Timbuktoo or Kalamazoo!

Hookah 1