Sheesha - What you need to know...

Depending on locality, Sheesha (Shisha) are known variously as hookahs, a water pipe, nargeela, argeela, okka, kalyan, or ghalyan

The sheesha is a sophisticated smoking device evolved to perfection in Istanbul and taken up throughout the old Ottoman Empire.

A Sheesha pipe is constructed from four fundamental components:
a. the base or smoke chamber, which is partially filled with water
b. the bowl or head, which contains the tobacco; the heating apparatus is placed on top
c. the pipe, which connects the bowl to the base by a tube that descends into the water
d. the hose, which connects to a second tube in the pipe that does not descend into the water, but only the air of the smoke chamber


The pipe will be served with a comforting pile of glowing charcoal on top. Make sure the waiter gives you a fresh plastic smoking tip

Charcoal would be the heating element. The charcoal is usually placed on a metal mesh or perforated aluminium foil, but can be omitted to produce a denser smoke

The most commonly-used Sheesha tobaccos (known as tobamel or maassel) are produced using a 1:2 mixture of shredded tobacco leaf mixed in with a sweetener such as honey, molasses or semi-dried fruit. In this period, the most commonly smoked substances in Sheeshas were opium and hashish

The fruit-flavored Sheesha tobaccos popular today got their start in the late 1980s when Egyptian tobacco companies began experimenting with flavored tobacco as a way to sell more of their products to women. Today, shisha tobacco is often mixed with dried fruit, natural extracts, and artificial flavorings to produce a varying assortment of tobacco flavors, including: apple, strawberry, rose, mango, cappuccino, vanilla, coconut, cherry, grape, banana, kiwifruit, blueberry, Arabian coffee, mixed fruit, watermelon, cantaloupe, cola, lemon, apricot, peach, white peach, licorice, orange and mint.

Smoking tips:
a. Suck hard enough to create the satifying bubbling in the water jar, but don't inhale (how not to??)
b. Occasionally check the top of the water jar for smoke. If it is cloudy gently blow down the pipe and the stale fumes will escape through a special side valve.
c. it is greatly frowned upon to light a cigarette on the sheesha fire because it is felt that it disturbs the rhythm of the burning charcoal
d. always keep the pipe on level ground, never on the table

For the water in the water pipe, Any fresh water will do, just ask the waiter to change it if it is brown with nicotine. Europeans have been known to use wine, beer or even whisky in the jar. Highly not recommended!!

A review published in the medical journal Pediatrics found that the concentration of cancer-causing and addictive substances in water-pipes may be equal to those found in cigarettes, with the heat involved being sufficient to generate carcinogenic nitrosamines, and the smoldering charcoal adding some carcinogenic hydrocarbons as well as heavy metals to the smoke

Thomas Eissenberg, a professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University co-authored a Sheesha study which found that a session of Sheesha smoking which lasts about 45 minutes, delivers 36 times more tar, 15 times more carbon monoxide and 70% more nicotine than a single cigarette. Which means a 45-minute session of Seesha = 9 cigarettes!!

Other researchers have raised objections to the methods used in these studies , and that it is unclear what ill-effects were directly related to Sheesha smoking, as opposed to other causes, including past cigarette smoking







Sources:
http://www.grailtrail.ndo.co.uk/Grails/sheesha.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheesha

...the one who probably won't do Sheesha for a long time to come