When I first visited Israel, I had the sublime pleasure of sitting around a table with a few buddies and sinking into my chair as I smoked sour apple shisha. We spent an hour in that cafe, passing around the hose and blowing great plumes of smoke into the air as our conversation drifted lazy and relaxed as the smoke which floated on the breeze.
Recently, I purchased a relatively cheap hookah with a single hose, and I’m wondering at some recommendations for flavors, and/or websites to order them from. I’ve tried peach, and that was really good. Someone recommended that I mix mint and orange, and I tried that today, and it’s just nasty.
So, any Dopers enjoy nargula, hookah, shisha, whatever the heck you call it? If so, what flavor tobacco do you like to smoke?
P.S. I use my hookah to smoke flavored tobacco, which is legal. If you would like to discuss anything illegal, please do not do so in this thread.
I’ve got a friend who has one and when he lived here some of us would get together a few times over the summer and smoke it. I was partial to the melon flavor myself.
I’m very fond of rose-flavored shishah. I also had some jasmine once at a hookah bar, but it was kind of harsh near the end. As far as fruit flavors go, apricot is my fave. This site has great prices and selection on tobacco and all kinds of accessories.
I really like mixed fruit or banana. Banana can be hit or miss, too, though - like melon, as you mentioned. I can’t remember the brand of the really good banana tobacco I had - I bought it at the Arab shuk in the Jerusalem’s Old City - but look around.
Most people I’ve talked to claim red apple is the absolute best, but I just find it boring.
I enjoyed apricot, but I don’t think any of the flavors are as good as just plain old tobacco.
I love smoking a hookah/shiksha/darjeelee/whatever. I have a Lebanese friend who always gets one going. I think he calls it a “darjeelee”. Something like that.
I’ve only smoked a hookah once, but I had some Jasmine flavoured and it was quite nice. From my friends who have enjoyed it in the past, they’re fans of the apple flavours. They used to go to a little hookah lounge in town where the guys that ran it would core a fresh apple and somehow put it in there so even more of the flavoure got infused in the smoke.
It’s not something I’d want to do more than once every few weeks, but it was enjoyable.
My Lebanese friend. He gets some Turkish brand. Maybe try an Arab market.
I couldn’t even begin to guess where he gets it from. He has tons of Arab family in Dearborn, Michigan, tons of Arab family in Massachussetts, and they’re all travelling to each other’s houses all the time, and always visiting the Middle East.
With the hookah, it seems to be more about the “aftertaste” because the inhale is so easy. It leaves that tobacco taste in your mouth, probably like a pipe, though I haven’t smoked many pipes. Definitely not as strong as a cigar.
