Category: Saet-Safa

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

Hookah Table 4 Safe Smoking

We talked about some safe smoking tips, like putting aluminum foil under the whole hookah area, not pulling too hard on the hose (bad,bad), making a non-tip base for your hookah….. or did we?
Actually, it was mentioned, but not as a special post not yet.
Of course, you might like to invest in this great simple colored plastic bowl-base.Non slippng and a perfect fit , there are small, and large sizes custom made
http://www.smoking-hookah.com/Store/Hookah-Accessories.asp
its at the bottom of he page “hookah protector”

. To make your own base for a non-tip hookah” tip” simply take a sturdy carton and draw around the bottom of your base, cut. You can have as high a box as you want, but 3 inches might be fine, or make of plywood, paint ,design and cut.
Mine sits on the 3 tiered glass table I have with a electric light on top . I had the table already. The 3 tiers are step sized. Small tier on top, second tier step bigger and the 3rd even wider with a brass metal magazine holder that happened to be a few m”m wider than my hookah base! Just dumb luck. I got it free from my sister who dumped it on me to try saving space in her house.
Try going to “Salvation Army” and “Goodwill” stores, buy a cheap table, cut a hole custom for your bowl size and nail some wood underneath to sink it 3 inches below the level of the table.
hookah 1

Hookah-Lover’s favourite flavour poll

Want to start a multi layered question poll now,

1) “What is your (ONLY ONE) favourite flavour?

2) What BRAND mu’assel shisha-tobacco is your favourite to buy?

You can see some of the company manufacturer’s names on the right hand of the page (but there are many that are omitted here for TEMPORARY lack of time and space)

3) If you were banished to Saint Elba Island like the British banished Napolean Boneparte’ “for Life” and were given all the food, mosquito repellant, videos and free postage stamps (no p.c. or cellphones) that you required
AND a chance to get a free supply delivered of any 5 brands of Shisha Mu’assel combinations with your only 5 favourite flavours, what would they be?

4) “Weirdest flavour you ever HEARD of.
Doesn’t mean you’ve smoked it, or would.
There is cinnamon, Earl Grey tea flavour which I love-but its not sugared at all, Cardammon flavour (Arab Hel flavour for Turkish coffee).
Okay, I’ll admit it here….I eat everything with garlic, have heard of garlic-chocolate so I made once home made garlic shisha with my glycerine, honey,garlic and Iranian (wetted) shisha tobacco.
I liked it, but it stayed the main dominant flavour for the life of my Cobra hose!
Best to write in names of already manufactured stuff like kiwi, pinacolada, tequilla, (Bloody-Mary chaps?). Here is your chance for some imput and personalfame.
Don’t forget, would you bring this flavour to your Elba Island home? Be carefull.
hookah 1 , 4u

First off- so that you won’t think me that bad a speller, I have to write some type-hype right now.
In English if you live inthe UK United Kingdom of Great Britain and its subjects i.e. Jamaica, Israel up until 1948,Arabian countries ,some of africa, Australia,Canada, etc, many words are writtenwith a “U” in them.
Favourite,Flavour,Humour,Qeue,Al-Qemah,Queensbury,Queen,Quneitra (of Syria) etc.
And why you may ask, when the American form of English dropped their “Q”‘s and “U”‘s ?
Well, isn’t English an Anglo-Saxon language first comming from Latin, and as England was conquered in various parts or re-conquered it added on the French Gaul,bits of Spanish (also Gaul), the language added from various Viking conquest, often a quick rape and burn by fellow Ireland who were conquering parts of Britain and being beaten back, the Germanic tribes of Anglos, later the Saxons who did them in, its the story of every nation in the world almost. Changed rulers, cultures, languages ,maps and religions. English is a ever-growing live language. If you had called President Kennedy your “hommie” then he’d” punch you out”, or said to your only one why don’t we jump in my low-rider and rotate these wheels” she’d call her father and probably have you put in jail overnight.(Today many girls haven’t seen their father in 3 years or more).”Whata”!!!!!!!!!!