Two days ago a friend came over and asked if I had any shisha. He smoked cigarettes and had stopped a few months ago but wanted an occaisional smoke.    He has a nargilah (Hookah) so I gave him some of my Herbal shisha.

Wow, this stuff is good.  I usually stick with Al Fakher because it’s not too cheap and not too expensive, assuming there couldn’t be too much of a difference between this and, say, Starbuzz.

But there is a noticable difference.  Starbuzz is a bit more expensive, but it’s also a bit higher quality.

The flavor of Starbuzz Pomegranate shisha is just sweet enough, without a hint of harshness.  This is the sort of shisha you could smoke for hours and never feel like it’s wearing on your lunges or taste buds.

Incidentally I don’t have any pictures of the Starbuzz shisha itself, since I was smoking it at a hookah bar (King Tut’s — Tempe, AZ)… here’s what I do have though:

Starbuzz shisha smoke:

The hot hot coals that heated up that Starbuzz shisha:

I thought that Starbuzz is all hype in light of there Budweiser-esque posters, but it turns out that the extra cost really is worth it.

Also, here’s what King Tut’s interior looks like:

King Tut’s wall ornament — Egyptian mask.

Well I said some harsh things about Coco Nara coals before, and I would now like to retract this harshness.  I guess this is the kind of coal that you only appreciate after you get to know it a little bit.  After I figured out how to light these coconut-derived, sugar-cube shaped beauties, they turned out to be a truly fabulous facilitator of smoking joy.

I figured out that my little stove top burners are not ideal for lighting the coals, but if I balance them just right over the flame and light both sides as intensely as possible, then the payoff is well worth it.

In this case, I had transitioned them from the heat of some other coals once they were sufficiently heated to smoke on their own two feet:

It’s true what they say — Once these Coco Nara coals get goin’, they burn clean, strong and for a really long time.  I was enjoying this particular bowl so much (the shisha happened to be Layalina, Kiwi flavor) that I hated leaving it.  After I had smoked it for about 30 minutes, neither the coal nor the shisha showed any signs of letting up.

This goes to show ya, sometimes the right shisha and the right coals come together to make the perfect, burning bowl of harmony.

See the happy smoke:

And this is surely a happy smoke ring:

Good job Coco Nara, and good job Layalina.  Did I mention that Layalina is another one of those dependable, not too expensive brands of shisha.  A small box like the one show below doesn’t usually cost more than $2-3.