Hookah Stories - Hookah South African Style part 2

So after experiencing the joy of the Hookah Smoke pillowing through my nose, and the joy of lighting a charcoal, I got hooked. I would go over and Hookah 2-3 times a week. We would sit and chat about 3rd world poverty, or movies we liked. We learned a lot about our selves sitting around and socializing. The South African told me more about Hookah and his culture. To my shock he told me that his parents were the ones that introduced him to Hookah. In fact, his family will make a Hookah with dinner. It is part of setting the table, you have your plates, glasses, silverware, and your Hookah Hose ready for a refreshing puff. He also said that his family had multiple Hookahs, one for decorative purposes that was used only on rare occasions, one for outdoors, and one for inside. He also taught me about the tobacco and that it was called Shisha and sometimes its called Narghila. It was very fascinating to think that there were cultures out there that had Hookah as a central part of it. I am sure to my parents, and even to the parents of the family that the Hookah was at, that it was not something completely condoned and fully supported. I can only imagine the type of Shisha that he smokes in South Africa. He showed me an important trick. He explained that adding mint together with a fruit flavor has very flavorful results. The mint almost acts like menthol and can take off some of the thickness of the Hookah flavor. Sometimes you want to do that because some of the Hookah flavors can be overwhelming on times, so the mint flavor acts to cut the flavor a bit. Stay tuned for the next part of the story when my SA friend teaches me to blow smoke rings.