A hookah consists of several parts. The most important ones are the shisha glass, the smoke column (nargile), a hose for the water pipe, the right seals, a coal tongs, sisha coal, a sieve and of course the sisha tobacco.

Building a hookah is actually very easy. First, the smoke column is placed on the (filled with water) glass, which closes the rubber seal well. Then the plate can be placed on the column of smoke. The plate is especially handy when it comes to preventing ashes from messing up the carpet. Then the seal of the hookah head is put on the column of smoke and the sound head simply put over it.

Finally, it only has to be made sure that the hose fits well in the seal, so that the full pulling power can occur, This would be the construction of a hookah already completed. Sometimes a shisha also has several tube openings. The superfluous should be sealed with paper and adhesive tape.

To smoke a shisha you need of course the appropriate tobacco. Unfortunately, you get the good (especially wet) Shisha tobacco that you know from your holiday in Switzerland difficult and not at all, because the ingredients unfortunately do not always comply with German law. If the hot tobacco is too dry, you can add some glycerine. The tobacco is evenly distributed in the head, not too tight and not too loose. Then the carbon sifter is simply placed over it. Many sieves have spikes that allow the strainer to be securely attached to the tobacco head.

Now the most sensitive part of the process, the kindling. For this you need shisha coal, which is easiest to ignite with the help of the coal tongs. Make sure that the coal fires evenly from all sides, as a partially ignited coal only partially reaches the tobacco. The coal is then placed on the sieve. Here, too, one of the most common mistakes happens by placing the coal under the tobacco. If you really want to smoke coal, you should proceed in this way, but you should keep in mind that pulling the hose pulls the embers into the tobacco. That's the way it should be, and not the other way around.

A guide to smoking itself, you can not actually give. Here is the personal style (tempo) and some experience in the foreground. You should at least refrain from inhaling the first 1-3 moves too deeply, as the tobacco does not yet glow, but the coal already. The taste is just disgusting to say the least.

A hookah is not smoked in a chord, but with style and calm. A Turkish or Arabic friend once said: "One move per coffee, that's enough." During smoking, already burned-off parts of the coal should be tapped again and again with the help of the tongs and (less often) the tobacco should be mixed a bit (but it is better not to clamp the sieve on the head) to improve the draft and the taste.