Hookah “base”: 6 important tips for smoke lovers

There is probably not a person on the island who has never tried hookah. Some prefer to smoke in establishments in a large company, others like to score by the pool in the villa. But how many understand the brands of tobacco, charcoal or, for example, mixes? How not to spoil the impression of hookah and why it can give you a headache?

We asked Roman Shershnev, the founder of Hookah Xpress Delivery service in Bali, about all this.

Let's start with who is choosing. If you are a beginner - it is one tobacco, lighter, smokers with experience need others. There are also hookah professionals, but these need only high-level tobacco.

I would immediately divide tobacco into “premium” and “non-premium” segments. From the “non-premium,” almost all brands will suit those who do not have a lot of experience. Because they are usually light, there are no strong ones. There is a nuance - they will be of low quality: strong aftertaste, the taste of tobacco raw materials, the flavor escapes quickly, they burn if you do not watch the heat, and so on.

If we talk about the premium segment, of the brands that are present in Bali, it's Starline. It is the only premium light tobacco that can be found on the island right now. The quality is maximized as it is a product from Darkside. Smoky, delicious, tons of flavors, there are unique ones. Doesn't burn, not at all. You can smoke it on four coals under a hood, it will not burn. Quickly recovers if something happens, easy to score, comfortable to work with. Smokes for over an hour.

If you have been smoking for more than a year, which I think is the majority of our customers, you can try tobaccos a little stronger. Medium or strong. Almost all premium brands in Bali are suitable here. These include Darkside, Blackburn, and Must Have. If stronger, Deus, Nash, and Tangiers can be smoked in mixes.

Those who are not first-time smokers prefer to mix different flavors, different brands, different strengths, getting new combinations.

Let's start with Arabic brands...This is far from “premium”, it is not “premium” at all. That is, if you see an Arabic brand in front of you, you immediately realize that there will be low-quality smoking, perhaps even with consequences for the body.

In general, I do not recommend them. Premium brands are all Russian brands that are present in Indonesia. There is also an American brand Tangiers (if it is original, not fake). The difference is very tangible.

First of all, the quality of the raw materials themselves, the quality of the flavorings, the technology of the manufacturing process. This is also very important. That is, expensive, high-quality tobacco you can smoke successfully even on a low-quality device, and you will still get pleasure from hookah. The pros are high heat resistance, long smoking compared to non-premium brands, that is, about an hour you will feel the taste in the hookah, the taste of tobacco, the taste of mixes that you scored. The con of expensive tobacco is only the price. This is the biggest and only disadvantage.

You want to smoke deliciously, be prepared to splurge a little. But in fact, there are some flyhacks, people mix premium with non-premium, conditionally there Darkside can be mixed with Al fakher or StarLine mixed with it and you will get a more or less tasty hookah. People who want to start smoking hookah, when they get acquainted with hookah through poor quality tobacco, they get an impression for the rest of their lives.

Well, and further accordingly will feel about hookah the same way: they are unlikely to want to try something new, something good. That's why you should always start with the maximum quality, always. Then you will have something to compare it with. You should not start with cheap tobacco.

Yes, in general, I do not recommend cheap tobacco, because there are often fakes and low-quality raw materials and you can do more harm to health, than pleasant impressions from hookah.

If one is smoking somewhere outside the home, then I would recommend a good establishment in Bali, with good hookah masters who know how to work with different brands. If it's about smoking independently at home, then you need a store with a good selection of brands.

The device is very important. Starting from the flask to the kalaud. If at least one element is of low quality, the impressions can be blurred. I will repeat - up to the point of harm to health. For example, people can lose consciousness from using poor-quality charcoal. This is not a joke, I'm serious. Charcoal is a very important part of hookah because it directly affects our body through CO emissions. This is carbon monoxide, which can be fatal if the body is saturated with it.

Therefore, you should treat the choice of charcoal in the same way as you do the choice of tobacco. If you don't want to wake up in the morning with a headache or leave the hookah lounge in an hour with a migraine. You should always pay attention to what kind of coal, whether there is no flavor, or how it ashes. Is there any extraneous odor in the process of kindling the charcoal.

Indonesia is the main supplier of coconut coal to the world market. Specifically, there are about 400 hookah charcoal industries in Surabaya. The processes are all very different. Sometimes they make charcoal in artisanal conditions and sell it at inflated prices. I have been testing charcoal here for all these years.

Now we have chosen coal of the best quality, at a reasonable price, and we sell it now and use it in our work. We are very careful in our choice of coal.

I can recommend a few brands. Coco Loco, of course. It's a global brand. That and Crown, that and Oasis. I would not recommend Tom Coco. Although it is also a big brand, its quality is not very good.

Naturally, I recommend our charcoal, which we use in our hookahs. Unfortunately, we don't have a brand on our charcoal yet, it's just “no name”. But we sell it, you can buy it. It is proven by time and thousands of our customers.

Mixology is a whole science that can be talked about for hours. Everyone has their own preferences, favorites, and recommendations.

The only advice I can give is the simplest and most understandable. Before voicing a mix, try to visualize these fruits or drinks in your head.

And try to eat them, chew them, drink them. And the sensations that your brain will give you when you imagine the combination of these fruits in your mouth, you will feel the same in the hookah. That is, if you want to mix coconut and pineapple, imagine that you just took a bite of coconut and immediately took a bite of pineapple, and chew it together. And there will be that very sourness of the pineapple on that kind of creamy sweet aftertaste of the coconut. This mix will also be smoked in the same way.

Do you want berries? Try to imagine biting into a strawberry, immediately throwing a blueberry in there, and chewing. And the flavor of the mix in the hookah is the same. So combining pineapple and cherry is a controversial decision. Although it's up to the person who likes it, I'll say it again.

I personally like all the gastronomic flavors in hookah. That is the taste of cheese, bread, tomato, cucumber, pumpkin, bacon, smoked salmon. I could go on listing gastronomic flavors for a long time, there are tons of them. Unfortunately, they are very, very scarce in Bali and Indonesia. I am already waiting for the moment when they will appear here in full.

The last top mix that I tried was passion fruit from Darkside, Dark Passion, plus Papaya from Starline. It is, in my opinion, the best papaya on the market. And the Supernova from Darkside is a chill. And you get the sweet and sour combination of a cold cocktail. It's mega delicious. And the flavor stays for a long time. You can smoke it longer than usual mix.

You can order a top hookah and try the most unusual and tasty tobacco mixes from the guys at Hookah Xpress Delivery.

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