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.

Hookah Stories - Hookah South African Style part 1

My parents scared me away from using cigarettes, but they couldn't keep me away from Hookah. In my senior year of High School a South African exchange student took our school by storm. The girls thought he was the dreamiest, and the guys were enthralled with his cool cultural sensibility. He was into DJing and having a really good time. I happened to become very good friends with him and started spending lots of time with him at his host families house. His host family had a girl my in my year, an older son, and an older daughter. One time when I was over at the house the older son, who was studying 3rd World Development, was smoking from a 4-stemmed Hookah with a few of his buddies. I asked if I could try, but also expressed that I didn't like smoking. They said that it was OK to do it every once and a while, and that Hookah Smoke was less harsh then cigarette smoke because it was filtered through water. I looked over at my South African friend and he took a drag from one of the long tubes and blew out a series of perfectly formed smoke rings. WOW! I thought to myself, that is so cool. I instantly wanted to have the ability to blow smoke rings like that, like I had seen on the movies. I sat down at the table and grabbed my own hose. I took a long drag in, I could barely feel the flavorful smoke enter my lungs. It tasted discreetly of mango. When I exhaled the fluffiest, puffiest, air come steaming out of my mouth. I loved it. I took another puff. And another. I just loved the feeling. I tried blowing the smoke out of my nose. While doing it I flared my nostils and the smoke came shooting out in nearly opposite directions, I felt like a dragon.