Hookah Pipe. Bongs & Vapes To Legal Highs & Snuff : Weedmania

Taking the plunge and buying your first shisha pipe can be quite a daunting experience. How big a pipe do you buy? How much do you spend? What exactly do you smoke in it? How does it work?

That is why I decided to put up this little blog all about shisha, or hookah, pipes so the uninitiated no longer feel so alone and in the dark!

When looking at your first pipe it is wise to choose one with a decent sized base. This will give you far superior cooling and cleansing of the smoke, and also stability. You don’t want to accidentally knock over a shisha with burning coals! I would recommend spending around £40 – £50 on your first shisha; believe me, it will be worth it and you will certainly get your money’s worth. Once you become more experienced you may even wish to spend more on a large shisha.

So you have your shisha pipe. You will need to pick something to smoke in it! Online it is very easy to find tobacco free herbal molasses. There are many different flavours available and this is all a matter of personal taste, but if you want to go for a truly authentic experience I would recommend apple.

Be aware – smoking a shisha is nothing like smoking a cigarette, joint or bong. This is a slow, sociable process that can take a couple of hours. I would not recommend using a shisha pipe to smoke pure tobacco or weed as this is too dry and will burn out far too quickly. These can be mixed with herbal molasses if you require, but smoking tobacco by itself will not be the enjoyable process that smoking a shisha should be.

Now you have your pipe, and you have something to smoke in it. Roughly half fill the base of your shisha with cold water, insert the neck of the pipe into the base, insert the hose into the side of this and fit the ceramic bowl into the top of the neck. You can then add your flavoured herbal mixture to this bowl. Finally, place a hookah charcoal screen over the top of this. (You can use tin foil if you don’t have a screen – just make sure that you have formed a reasonably tight lid and have perforated the foil with holes) You will require coals to make this work. Unlike a bong you cannot simply hold a lighter over your smoking mixture. As I have already said, this is a slow relaxing and sociable process so there are no quick fixes. You can buy self-igniting charcoal to use; this is very simple as all you have to do is ignite the edge of the charcoal, and the flame will spread across the surface and stay lit until the charcoal has burned out.

Now you will require possibly the most important element of all. Good company. It takes a long time to smoke a shisha; you have to draw heavily and regularly to keep the coal and molasses at optimum smoking temperature, and for this reason I wouldn’t recommend that you smoke alone! You will end up incredibly light headed if you do! Make sure you are with someone who gives you good and easy conversation and your experience with the shisha will always be an enjoyable one.

I went on holiday to Turkey recently and we came across a little Hookah Bar. I had never tried smoking a Hookah so gave it a go, and I must say, I like what I discovered.

The bar had an incredibly friendly and relaxed atmosphere. This was a perfect place to go and relax with some ‘me’ time if that was what you were after, but also a perfect place to meet new and interesting people.

We found a little corner, relaxed on some extremely comfy floor cushions, and spent a very happy hour smoking, drinking coffee or apple tea, smoking, chatting away, smoking, relaxing and smoking some more.

Back home I decided to invest in a Hookah pipe of my own. There are several available from small mini ones, quite similar in size to travel bongs, to huge, ornamental multi-pipe beauties that occupy a fair amount of floor space and are designed to be kept on show at all times.

I opted for an average size, single pipe Hookah. It cost me about £40 and looks very ornamental and beautiful. Better than that, it smokes like a dream. Now, in Turkey we smoked various flavoured tobaccos, but back home I’ve found herbal shisha mixes that are just as tasty. They are available in a massive array of flavours from the fruity, to the spicy, to the refreshingly minty! It seems that i will always have a flavour of herbal smoking mix to get my juices going.

I’d recommend one of these to any smoker. It is not the same as kicking back with an ordinary smoke, but it is a perfect complement to a relaxing evening.