FREE UPS Ground Shipping - OR - Free Hookah T-Shirt
Four great Hookahs on Sale
It’s that time of year again…
Students are preparing for classes to start, professors are dusting off their notes from last year, and old friends are re-connecting after a long summer away. We’re no strangers to academia and we’ve always felt that the best way to study is with a good hookah by your side. Similarly, no back to school party is complete without a hookah for guests to congregate and share summertime adventure stories.
We have lowered the price on four of our favorite and most popular hookahs to help make your Back To School shopping that much easier. In addition to great prices on these hookahs, we’re offering you a great choice: either take FREE UPS Ground Shipping, or you can pick up one of our new Hookah T-Shirts absolutely FREE!
Free Hookah T-Shirt Discount Code: Free Shirt
Shop to your heart’s content. Once you have $50 or more in your cart, add one of our super cool new Hookah T-Shirts to your cart. Input the discount code: Free Shirt into the discount code box on the 3rd page of the checkout process and then click “recalculate.” This will trigger a $19.95 discount that will apply to your order. New threads for school that will show off your hookah pride… yeah!
Free UPS Ground Shipping Discount Code: Free Ship
Like with the Free Shirt option, you must have $50 or more in your cart for this discount code to work. Simply select UPS Ground level shipping service (only valid for domestic, non-P.O. Box U.S. orders) and input the discount code: Free Ship. Make sure to click “recalculate” and verify that the shipping fee is removed from your order.
Note: You can only use one of these coupons per order. As Indiana Jones was once told: Choose Wisely.
Four Great Hookahs On Sale!
The Old School Rotator is one of the best smoking hookah we have ever sold. The one hose construction provides the widest air path of any hookah on the market and the globe shaped glass base holds an incredible volume of smoke. $99.95
You just can’t go wrong with the Mini Mya. The acrylic base is sturdy and almost impossible to break and it smokes exceptionally well. This hookah is available in a one hose version as well as a two hose version with auto-seal. $49.95
The Leila Portable Hookah has rapidly become a customer favorite. Small enough to fit in the cup holder of some vehicles, and sporting an enclosed coal chamber, it’s a great one to travel with. Don’t let the little size fool you, this hookah smokes like a champ! $89.95
The Mya Piccolo is an elegant little hookah that is perfect for the smoker in tight living quarters. The Piccolo also comes with a great hard case that makes traveling a breeze. This hookah is available in a one hose version as well as a two hose version with auto-seal. $59.95 (one hose) $69.95 (two hose)
The results are in from our Hookah Olympics Youtube contest! We had a lot of fun watching the videos and we thank everyone who participated. Without further ado, here are our medal winners:
Gold Medal winner: Water Games!
A lot of effort went into this aquatic-themed hookah Olympic video, and our judges unanimously gave it a perfect score all around. Michael Phelps, eat your heart out!
Overall score: 5.0
Silver Medal winner: Smoke ring target shooting!
Our silver medalist is quite the smoke ring sharp-shooter!
Overall score: 4.3
Bronze Medal winner: Hookah Marathon!
The Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt took home the gold this year for running 100 meters in a record-breaking 9.69 seconds. Well guess what? Big deal. This guy takes 100 hookah hits in less than 6 minutes. Beat that Usain!
Overall score: 4.0
(bonus points awarded for not passing out)
Runners-up:
Record-setting bubble blowing!
Smoke Ring Skeet Shooting!
We’re not exactly sure what’s going on in these videos, but it looks like they had fun making it!
To that question, I always reply “It’s my favorite accessory that we sell! No hookah is complete without one.” I realize that’s a pretty bold statement, considering all the other factors that go into a pleasurable hookah smoking session, but I do believe that if you are looking for the smoothest, most flavorful hookah smoke, you are doing yourself a disservice if you have not tried the diffuser.
If you are not familiar with this product, you may be asking yourself, “what is a diffuser and how can a $10 product make that much difference when smoking hookah?” To the untrained eye it may only look like a piece of plastic with a bunch of holes in it but to those in the know, it’s one of the most effective ways to enhance the flavor of your shisha and improve the quality of the smoke you are getting from your hookah. So, how exactly does this work?
When hookah smoke leaves the bottom of the downstem, it naturally forms large bubbles of air/smoke within the underwater environment of the base. The water in the hookah filters out certain elements of the smoke, including some of the nicotine. When the bubble reaches the surface of the water, the smoke is released and travels through the hose into your mouth and lungs. The diffuser acts as a screen that all these large bubbles need to pass through. It has many holes in it, which serve to break up the larger bubbles into dozens of much smaller bubbles. When this happens, the total surface area of all the bubbles is increased dramatically, which results in much greater filtration by the water.
Let’s look at this example. Use your imagination and think of this beach ball as filled with smoke. This represents a bubble from a hookah without a diffuser, and the green shaded area represents the smoke that is touching the water. Not much huh? The water only comes in contact with the smoke on the edge of the ball, while the rest of the smoke inside goes unfiltered.
Now lets take that same volume of smoke that was in the beach ball and fill a bunch of ping pong balls with it:
These are bubbles from a hookah WITH the diffuser in place. Just like the beach ball example, the green areas represent where the water is touching the smoke, and as you can see, what a difference it makes. More water touching the smoke = increased filtration = cooler, denser, more flavorful smoke.
The wait is over hookah friends, and we’re happy to announce that the winning T-shirts from our T-shirt design contest are here at last! Designed by you, voted by you, and now available to you for only $20. Once again we’d like to thank all of the creative hookah smokers out there that participated, and offer congratulations to the winners. Check out the Hookah T-Shirts here!
8/25/08 ~ It was a great competition and there were some very creative entries. We thank all the contestants for their participation. Keep checking back as we’ll be posting any updates to this contest here on this page.
Make sure to check out all the Hookah Olympics submissions; the contestants put in some hard work making these videos.
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Hookah-Shisha.com Hookah Olympics!
Howdy Hookah fans! This Friday marks the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Couldn’t get a ticket? Didn’t quite qualify for the 200 meter backstroke you’ve been training for all summer? Fret not, for you have a chance to go for the gold while enjoying some summer hookah smoking!
We’ve created our own Hookah Olympic Games that you can participate in. Though the criteria for earning the gold, silver or bronze is slightly different than you’d expect: we’re looking for creativity, originality, and fun. The best part is that you get to create your own events!
Contest Rules:
Make a video of you, your friends, your enemies, or anyone else that wants to participate, doing hookah related events. We’ll get into what kind of events in a minute, and there are only two rules that you need to follow:
The first rule is that you need to post your video on YouTube with the title of the video listed as “Hookah Olympics - “Event Name”" where “event name” is whatever you decide to name your event.
The second rule is that you need to include the following link in the first sentence of the description of your post: http://www.hookah-shisha.com/hookahlove/290-hookah-olympics.html
Lastly, we ask that you please email us with the link to your post so we can embed it in our blog to keep all the competitors abreast of the competition. All submissions must be posted on YouTube by the end of the day Saturday, August 23rd. We will announce winners on Sunday, August 24th.
So, what kind of events are there?
We’ve thought up a couple ideas that might help get your creative juices flowing, but the sky’s the limit. You can create any event you like, provided you offer a brief description of the event and any particular rules you’ve created for it so the average viewer will know what they’re looking at.
Bowl Loading: This is an event of quickness and skill. Who can load their bowl the fastest, while properly installing the foil with nicely poked holes. Bonus points for neatness.
Hookah Relay Race: Race your friends around a course using your hookah as the baton while stopping for a puff at each exchange. We suggest using a Leila hookah or an Ultimate Combo Bowl to avoid coal burns. (Bonus points for smoking while running!)
Synchronized Smoking: A great way to express your inner artist. At least 2 people moving and smoking in synchronicity. Bonus points for style and hilarity points for incorporating any aspect of Rhythmic Gymnastics (you know you want to use one of those twirly ribbon things, right?!)
Smoke-Ring Sharpshooter: An event of skill and focus, pick a target and blow smoke rings at it. Whomever hits the mark the most consistently wins! Bonus points for style.
There are countless other ideas we know you can come up with. Create your own event and post it up for the world to see.
Prizes and Awards:
Each video submitted will be scored on a scale of 1-5. Our expert judges will examine your video and give it a score. All entrants will earn $5 in Hookah-Shisha Reward Points for each point they score. Maximum $25 in credit for each video with a limit of 4 videos per person.
We will also award a Gold, Silver and Bronze medal for the top three overall videos. Gold will receive $100 in store credit plus a free Hookah T-Shirt. Silver will receive $50 in store credit plus a free Hookah T-Shirt. Bronze will receive $25 in store credit plus a free Hookah T-Shirt. Store credit paid to Gold, Silver and Bronze winners will be in addition to credit paid for initial entry score.
Special Promotions during the Olympic Games!
From now until the closing ceremonies on August 24th, take advantage of either FREE UPS ground shipping (order minimum $40) or 10% off your entire order! Please use the following coupon codes during the checkout process:
“Olympic 10” - this coupon code will take 10% off of your order. There is no minimum to buy! (make sure you press the “apply discount” button before you press the final checkout button!)
“Olympic Ship” - this coupon code will give free UPS ground shipping for our domestic customers for orders over $40. (make sure that you select UPS ground as your selected shipping method, and don’t forget to press the “apply discount” button before you press the final checkout button!)
The first thing you’ll probably notice about this list is that it doesn’t include anything particularly fancy or exotic. While exotic flavors are fun once in awhile or for parties, there are just certain flavors that every hookah owner must have for day-to-day smokes. So without further ado, from the home office in the town just outside the town, just outside Oakland, California, here are Frank’s Top Ten Shisha Flavors Every Hookah Owner Must Have:
10. Lemon: By itself, lemon is only so-so, unless you really enjoy having a puckered mouth. Mix it with a sweet flavor like cherry or fruits for a complex edge or mint for a flavor that will clear your sinuses.
9. Mixed Fruit/Fruits: A standard flavor produced by most manufacturers, mixed fruit/fruits usually tastes like red Kool-Aid. Al Waha Fruit’s Flavour is my personal favorite, it’s a great reminder of summer days by the pool reading comics, an icy glass of Kool-Aid by my side. It’s also a great mixer that goes well with other fruit flavors such as peach, mango, melon, and even strawberry.
8. Melon: Another standard, melon is great for the fans of cantaloupe. It’s great on a hot summer when you’re imagining yourself living in a Bedouin tent at a tree-lined oasis in the desert. Sweet, cool, and refreshing by itself, most melon flavors mix well with tangy fruits such as mango or peach. Try mixing equal parts melon, peach, and mango for a fruity treat I call “fruit salad”.
7. Cinnamon: Cinnamon is a little harsh by itself but it can bring back nice memories of fall and winter holidays such as pie baking in the oven, your mom’s special cocoa, or warm apples with your breakfast. It also makes an excellent mixer. Try it with mint for a late afternoon pick-me-up. (admin note: Cinnamon is only available from Romman, Starbuzz, Al Fakher, Tangiers, and Nakhla)
6. Cardamom: Cardamom tastes and smells as exotic as it sounds. It fills the room with a heady aroma that recalls adventures searching for treasure in exciting locales along the Silk Road or fighting pirates off the coast of India. Do yourself a favor, next time it’s a gloomy day with nothing to do, pack some cardamom flavored shisha in your bowl, throw some Ravi Shankar or the Arabian Spices album in your CD player and let your mind take you away to a far-off place. (admin note: Cardamom is only available from Nakhla and Al Fakher)
5. Honey: By itself honey is sweet, inoffensive, and a little bland just like Winnie-the-Pooh. Use it as a mixer to take the edge off of bitter fruit flavors such as mango or peach. Try it with mint for a taste like old fashioned cough drops. (admin note: Honey is only available from Al Waha, Fumari, and Al Fakher)
4. Cherry: By itself a nice cherry is reminiscent of early summer evenings sharing hot fudge sundaes with your special someone. As a mixer it goes great with cola, mixed fruit, lemon, and even mint for an excellent after dinner smoke. Try it with vanilla and cola for a cool treat on a warm afternoon.
3. Cola: By themselves most cola flavors are so-so, rather like drinking a flat coke but add a mixer such as cherry, lemon, or vanilla and you’re transported to yesteryear, to the days of soda fountains and flavored colas. Try mixing cola in the water in your base for an extra sweet cola flavor on those days when you’re craving a soda but would rather not have the empty calories.
2. Vanilla : Vanilla, like honey, is sweet an in offensive by itself.Mix it with orange for an orange cream or cola to create vanilla coke. Try it with nearly any fruit flavor to recreate the experience of eating ice cream or sherbet on a summer day.
1.Mint: A good mint, especially something like Al Fakher Mint, is great by itself. It’s like smoking a Tic Tac or toothpaste. It’s cool, refreshing, and gives you minty fresh breath on those days when brushing your teeth just seems like work. Also it’s a great mixer. It gives any flavor a cool and refreshing aftertaste. It’s great with fruit flavors or for brightening up flavors that are too heavy and sweet on their own. Some of my personal favorites are lemon mint, cola mint, and fruit mint.
Until next time…
May all your shishas taste like the label promises and may all your smoke be puffy and white.
That’s right, we’ve grown too big for our britches at our current location and are packing up and moving warehouses! The good news is that we’ll be able to carry a larger inventory in the future and will have more products in stock at all times.
Unfortunately, the bad news is that this move will cause a temporary delay in shipping orders out for this week. Orders with expedited shipping (UPS 2nd day, next day, etc.) will ship on time, however UPS Ground orders and international orders may experience a maximum of a 2-3 business day delay. We can assure you this delay is only temporary and will only affect orders placed this week. As soon as we get settled in our new place next week we’ll be back on our “next business day” shipping schedule. We kindly ask for your patience during our move and we apologize for any inconvenience. Fell free to contact us with any questions!
In the countries where the hookah developed the hookah is considered almost sacred, because of this an intricate system of etiquette developed around the hookah. When the hookah is shared the hose should either be placed on the table to signify that it is available or it should be passed to right. When it is passed, it should be folded so that the mouthpiece is not facing the next person. Ashing cigarettes into the hookah ash tray should be avoided. This system of etiquette is hundreds of years old and developed largely in the Middle East. And it is just fine for traditional hookah bars but as with so many other aspects of culture, theyoung American and European hipsters and Bohemians who have adopted it, have developed their own, slightly less formal etiquette.
The proliferation of both online and brick and mortar hookah shops has helped move hookahs out of hookah lounges and into the home where they are often the centerpiece of parties and other social events. Unlike the lounges, parties are often less strict about etiquette. That doesn’t mean there are no rules, the rules are just different. The primary rule is usually stated as, “Dude, smoke or pass.” It’s bad form to simply hold onto a hose and not use it, give other people a chance. Amongst the Gen X and Gen Y hipsters and Bohos it is common to hear someone exclaim, “Dude, plug your hole”. If this wasn’t in reference to the practice of placing one’s thumb over the opening of the hose to maintain proper air flow, it would be darn rude. It is also considered bad form to twirl one’s hose like a baton until it falls out of the grommet and then whimper like a puppy that has been stepped on when you aren’t getting any smoke. Also tugging on the hose until the hookah tips over is also generally frowned upon. It gets ash and hot coal all over the place and it’s near impossible to get that smell of hookah water out of the carpet. Another rule at parties is never come empty handed. Come on, you’re visiting someone’s house to essentially smoke for free, bring something, even if it’s not hookah related, drinks and snacks are always appreciated. If you want the host of the party to really think you’re cool, bring over a can or two of shisha or few rolls of coal.
Every activity has its rules. This even applies to social activities such as sharing a hookah bowl…or five with your friends. If your host insists on some sort of rules of etiquette, be cool and follow them. In the end, the rules are there to make the party or lounge safe and pleasant for everyone.Until next time…
…May all your shisha taste like the label promises and may all your smoke be puffy and white.
Often the question is asked of us, “what is the largest bowl that you sell?” Up until this point the answer was always “well, that depends, the Mod Bowls are wider but shallower, the regular Mya ceramic bowls are deeper but narrower, and the large Phunnel bowl holds the most tobacco but smokes much differently than either of the previously mentioned bowls.”
Behold, the “Jumbo” Mya bowls, the definitive answer to the aforementioned question. These “pumped up” ceramic bowls can claim two superlatives amongst our traditional hookah bowl collection: “Deepest” and “widest.” With the capacity to hold up to 35g of shisha tobacco, these bowls are perfect for those who like an extra long smoking session and are great for hookah parties!
Hookah-shisha.com presents our third guest blog author and finalist in our blog contest. Frank C answers the familiar question, “So what Is This Hookah Anyways?” We can’t think of a better question!
The best way I have found of describing a hookah is through cultural references that people are already familiar with. Do you remember the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland? Or Jabba the Hutt from the Star Wars franchise? Do you remember those funny looking pipes they had? Those were hookahs.
Essentially a hookah is a single or multi-stemmed (often glass-based) water pipe that can be used for smoking a variety of herbal preparations including tobacco, hashish, and opium. Excluding the grommets, hookahs are made up of five basic components, four of which are essential to its function. These include: the bowl; the hose; the body, gasket, valve combination; and the water jar. To these, can be added the plate and grommets.
The bowl, also known as the head, is made of coal, marble, or even Pyrex glass. It contains tobacco or other herbs and the coal during a smoking section. It is filled with tobacco and then covered with perforated aluminum foil or metal or glass screen which holds the hot coals which heats the tobacco rather than burning it.
The smoke (actually vapor) is drawn through a slender rubber hose fitted with a wooden, plastic, or metal mouth piece. Depending on design hookahs can have from one to eight hoses, regardless of number, hookah smoking is usually a social activity.
The body of the hookah consists of a (usually) metal pipe with a gasket at the bottom. The gasket seals the connection between the body of the pipe with water jar and also contains the port or ports for the hose and may contain a valve to evacuate smoke from the water jar. A second pipe extends from the gasket into the water jar.
The water jar forms the base of the hookah. As the name suggests it contains water through which the smoke passes before entering the hose. The water adds moisture to the smoke making it less harsh and functions as a filter removing some of the harmful particulates. While the jar is traditionally filled with water, other liquids can be added to compliment the flavor of the tobacco such as wine, spirits, fruit juice, or even cola.
The plate rests just below the bowl and is essentially an ashtray that catches ash from the coals and acts as a receptacle for spent coals.
Grommets are often used between the bowl and the body, the gasket and the jar, and in the hose ports to seal joints between the parts in order to minimize the amount of air flowing in and maximize the amount of smoke flowing up the hose. However, the same effect can be achieved with paper or even tape.
The hookah is ancient and its origins are obscure, lost in the mists of time. Thought to have originated in India, the hookah, known by a variety of names such as sheesha, narghile, or ghelyan ; spread throughout Asia and the Near East through contact with various Islamic empires. Hookahs were originally used to smoke intoxicants such as hashish and opium but through contact with the New World in the 15th and 16th century those intoxicants were gradually replaced with tobacco.
Originally hookah tobacco, known by a variety of names such as ma’sal (from the Arabic for “honeyed”); shisha (which may also refer to the hookah pipe); or jurak (an Indian term for either traditional sweetened tobacco or contemporary fruit flavored tobacco), was a mixture of either honey or molasses, tobacco, and dried fruit which produced a thick, sweet but flavorless smoke. However in the 1980s, in an effort to gain more female customers, tobacco companies began adding fruit and candy flavors to their mixes.
In the countries where hookah culture originated, smoking is a social activity. It is not uncommon to find hookahs being shared in cafes, clubs and restaurants. As with the coffeehouses of Europe and the Americas, hookah cafes are often the center for discussion of arts, poetry, religion, philosophy, and politics. In homes they are often the center for socializating with friends and family. It has been said that cigarettes are for nervous people, competitive people, people on the run. When one smokes a hookah you have time to think, and contemplate your world. Hookahs teach tolerance and patience and to appreciate good company. It is perhaps that quality that has lead to the hookah’s popularity amongst many Westerners, especially students, artists, hipsters, and other Bohemians. Many larger cities and college towns are likely to have at least one hookah lounge and several stores that sell hookahs, tobacco, and accessories.
Silver Medal winner: Smoke ring target shooting!
Bronze Medal winner: Hookah Marathon!
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