Middle East Hookah

[Glasshalffull]

Hi fellow hookah/shisha lovers. My first time posting after reading tons of great posts. Anyone know about smoking hookah similar to how was back in the Middle East like 40 years ago? I live in Cali and want to try it but don’t know exactly what it was. But one thing I know is that it was not sweet like the current hookah tobacco they sell in stores. I think they were non flavored as well. I may be mistaken but I think they were dry leaves not the wet molasses/honey type we buy in stores now. But they had a good taste. In the deep Middle East they call it “Ghelyoon”. I thought it may have been just dried natural tobacco without added flavoring.  It it didn’t work: I bought pure organic tobacco leaves from a company online. I washed and cut the leaves into very small pieces by hand a couple of times with warm water. Then let them sit in hot tea water (Djarjeling/Black tea for flavor) for several minutes. Then shred them more by hand. Then dried them (sit out overnight to dry then in oven for 25 mins at 200 degrees. Was super excited to try packed the bowl of my Ghelyoon. And to my dismay no smoke/barely any smoke would come out. I read a few posts so I added some honey to it and.... again some improvement but minimal smoke. Last resort was I added some modern hookah tobacco from Al Faker to it and it finally worked but overpowered by the honey and the AF.  Any ideas? Thanks. 

Edited January 13, 2019 by Glasshalffull

[Dominik]

Hey there!

Just adding anything but glycerin wouldn't make it cloudy. The glycerin does. Of course nowerdays there is an option for pg too but what seems more intersting right now; glycerin is actually some kind of alcohol not active for a human being but it is a kind of alcohol. And this alcohol is like I just read a product which comes after adding sulfites to the alcohol generation. So if there was honey and a realy bit of water mixed to the tobacco and sulfites in which might have come out of a sugarcane melasses which we know now as blackstrap they might have just had glycerin by natural in.

Maybe just ad glycerin to your leaf by a 1:2 ratio (tobacco:glycerin). By myself I use a 1:2.25 ratio and glycerin was mixed with honey with a 1(honey) to 2(glycerin) ratio and a few drops of water which i just drip in from my hand.

Don't let confuse yourself from the strange ratios that's just the results of the tests  I made by myself.

If you would like to get it to glycerin by nature I think you need to store it quiete warm but I never tried .

If you would like to test this glycerin honey thing - give it a month because glycerin needs time to eat the honey but it does.. somehow xD really sweet after a month.

And... you know tobacco raw leaf is a very quality product with many good resin and if you wash it you make a quality product quiete worth- and tasteless just let it be the pure power of tobacco and get yourself a leaf in that strength you like. No wash. ;D

Greetings from germany man

dominik