Sunday, December 30, 2012

Smoking Tobacco with a Hookah

By John McCree


Used for smoking flavored tobacco, a hookah is device that purifies smoke with a water basin prior to inhalation. The components of a hookah are relatively basic and straightforward, but the craft of making hookahs has been perfected over centuries in and around the Middle East, and most high quality hookahs continue to be produced in this area.

Structure

The end of the body is submerged in a water jar through which the smoke produced by burning tobacco passes. The smokes comes out of the bottom of the body and is purified by the water and kept in air chamber over the water. Passing smoke through water cools down the temperature of the smoke and makes it more suitable for the lungs, which is an additional positive side effect of purifying smoke with water. On the top left section of the water jar in this diagram is the hose. It is not shown in the diagram, but the length of the hose is approximately one meter. As the smoker puffs on the hose, the purified smoke exits the air chamber and is breathed in by the smoker through the hose. After inhaling, the smoker exhales neat and aromatic smoke. Generally, people smoke hookah while sitting in groups with their close friends on family enjoying their company.

What Do You Inhale from a Hookah?

Hookahs are traditionally used to smoke flavorful tobacco often called "shisha". Nowadays these things are used to prepare shisha: tobacco, treacle (uncrystallized syrup produced in refining sugar), honey, sugar, molasses, glycerin, nicotine, dried fruit and distilled water.

Shisha is usually fruit flavor based. However, flavors that are offshoots of these fruity favors like Banana split are now gaining popularity.

Adding flavor to tobacco at the time of production has become quite simple and now one can find a range of different flavors. Unique flavors are made because essentially every ingredient can be mixed in dried, tobacco, glycerin and sweetener.

The Original Source of Hookahs

The term "hookah" is derived from the Indian "huqqa", a word that originated around the 1500's when the hookah was first designed by a Persian physician, Abul-Fath Gilani. He designed the hookah to create a mechanism to purify smoke by passing it through water, and thus eliminating the many health threats of smoking. But, it is said that even before he invented it, hookah existed in other regions of Persia. Whatever the case, the recognition of the hookah grew throughout India and Pakistan, westward into Iran, Turkey, and Lebanon. In turkey, the Turkish elite class swiftly grew fond of hookah and thereon it spread in to Lebanon, Syria and into regions of northern Africa. It is now gaining popularity among the rest of the globe.

As the hookah reached different countries, it picked up various names.

Nargile (also pronounced Argilee) - Mainly used in Italy, Turkey and Israel

Narguile - used in Spain

Lula (or lulava) - used in Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina

Sheesha - used in northern African and Arab countries

Qalyan - used in Iran

Karim Khan - used in Russia, Belarus

Chillim - used in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan

Huqqa - used in India and Pakistan

Gudugudaa - used in Maldives

Marra Pipe - used in the UK

I Wish To Buy a Hookah, Where Should I Go?

You can visit a shop in-person to purchase a hookah or you can buy one on the net. Since the beginning of this century, the number of hookah shops and hookah bars in the U.S. has increased. People who live in the more populated urban areas can certainly get a hookah shop near them. In the Mediterranean countries and the Persian Gulf, hookahs have grown to be a part of everyday life of individuals. However, this is not the case in the U.S.

In case you are not able to locate a hookah shop or you like to shop from the convenience of your home then you can buy a hookah on the net.

What You Need To Know About Health Hazards Before Beginning to Smoke Hookah?

The controversy rages on about whether or not hookah smoking is safer than cigarette smoking. People who are in favor of smoking hookah say that the smoke that comes from hookah is cleaner because it is purified through water and that the temperature of the smoke is also moderate. Critics point out that hookah contains more harmful toxins as compared to cigarettes. It has compounds just like tar, carbonmonoxide and heavy metals. One more argument is that hookah smoking sessions can last 60 minutes or longer, so the amount of smoke inhaled is much greater than cigarette smoking. On the other hand, hookah smoking is considered less addictive than cigarettes, and many hookah smokers do it on a much more casual or social basis, as opposed to many cigarette smokers who typically smoke several cigarettes daily.




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