Social Life

Putting your Hookah in some sort of cloth bag was the only way to carry your Hookah until modern hookahs hit the market. These new modern hookahs featured hard sided carrying cases that looked more like gun case than it did a Hookah case. A lot of customers ask us if a Hookwh can come in a carrying case to which we answer… sometimes. The reason some Hookah can come in small hard sided carrying cases is because the stem is either really small or it breaks down into multiple segments. Traditional stems, like the stems we use on our Tradtional Hookahs, feature solid stainless stems that run from the bowl port to the bottom of the piece that sits in the water. These stems usually measure about 80% of the total height of the assembled hookah so even a small 24″ hookah would require a carrying case that was about 16-18″ in length or across its diagonal. Modern Hookahs have modular stem designs which allow the stem to come apart at various points making the necessary case significantly smaller.

For a long time I used to tell customers to pack their bowl just low enough to keep the foil from coming in contact with the tobacco. I would tell them that this would give them their best shot at having a long flavorful smoking experience. I’m was for sure that this was the perfect way to setup a hookah bowl, but in actuality I was only telling a half truth. What I didn’t take into consideration was the quality of the tobacco that was being used to setup the Hookah. High quality tobacco doesn’t require as much heat to produce smoke as does lower quality shishas. The right amount of tobacco and charcoal to use will completely depend on what tobacco brands you are using. Play with the amount of tobacco you use to get the longest lasting flavor and thickness of smoke out of your bowl. Personally I do not like the strong taste of tobacco and associated harness which comes from burning the shisha tobacco too hot so I only smoke tobaccos that produce thick flavorful smoke without needing the foil/coals to contact the tobacco.

There is no magic band aid to solving environmental issues but while no one is perfect we can all contribute to the solution. Social Smoke strives to reduce our economic impact by recycling and reusing as much as we can. Here are a few of the ways we have found to help:

1. Peanuts - As of November we switched to 100% biodegradable starch peanuts, which solved the problem of using Styrofoam peanuts as void fill for our shipping. The problem with recycling Styrofoam peanuts is that although our customers receive an annoying amount of peanuts in their shipment (necessary to reduce breakage) there is not enough peanuts to merit creating pollution driving to a recycling center (if one even exist around your house).

2. Reduced use of boxes - Boxes are both recyclable and reusable, but the unnecessary use of boxes is wasteful and is something that we work hard to reduce where we can. We stock many different sized boxes to make sure that we have just the right box for the job and which help reduce waste of paper and the use of extra peanuts.

3. Paper - Paper is always used by the tons in office environments and is something that we have done a very good job of reducing. We do not send an invoice to our retail customers because they can see their invoice online. We also use double sided printing where we can and rely heavily on electronic documents for our internal work and electronic means of communication.

4. Shipping - We ship literally tons of product around the world and we work as hard as we can to maximize our shipping procedures. We have developed methods to ensure we pack our shipments as tight as they can be while still protecting the product from breakage. Also, when we order our supplies we invest in the necessary inventory that will fill up a large over sized container and thus reduce the carbon foot print per item.

One area that we want to figure out how to improve is traditional recycling of our office paper, coke cans, and glass. Our city doesn’t provide a recycling program for companies which makes me wonder how important the city really thinks recycling is.

Reducing waste and maximizing our reuse of good resources is a corporate culture at Social Smoke. And who says going green is expensive?! We found that these changes not only help the environment but have had a positive effect on our bottom line. Going green makes cents.

If you have any experiences or ideas that could help us get better please share!

Decrease the passing and increase the puffing! Multihose hookahs are essential if you frequently have more than a couple of people on the same Hookah. You can lean back in your favorite chair and hog a hose while your friends fight over the other hose.

A variety of construction materials, methods, and design styles provides for a range of functional differences so not every multihose is created equal. One of the biggest differences in multihose hookahs is whether there is an auto-sealing one way valve in each hose port. The one way valve is designed to seal off the hose port if air is flowing back into the hookah.

The problem is that it will stop any attempt to blow back into the hookah and clear out the smoke chamber. Usually hookahs that have the auto-sealing valves will have one open port to ensure the hookah can be cleared out by one hose. This free flowing hose must be smoked like a traditional multihose hookah where you must cover the hose with your thumb or a rubber hose flip cap to allow other uses to smoke. If your mutlihose hookah is from our modern collection and you decide that you don’t want to have one free flowing hose port you can add a ball bearing to the hose port.

Due to the design and construction of most Traditional Hookahs they do not come with auto-sealing hose ports. Most of the time you cannot even add a ball bearing because the tube is not perfectly circular as it travels down from the hose port to the smoke chamber.

The term “Natural charcoal” is common to the Hookah industry and is often misunderstood or confused. To set the record straight: Natural charcoal is any charcoal that does not have chemicals added to aid in lighting. It can come in a variety of different forms and shapes such as unprocessed “lump” charcoal or pressed into a shape such as sticks (aka fingers), bricks, tablets, hearts, diamonds, whatever…

Lighting natural charcoal requires a constant heat source such as a torch or a coil burner like those found on electric stove tops. The charcoal should be evenly heated until fully lite and glowing red before put to use. You can purchase a stand alone coil burner at a general retail store for less than $15.

Our selection of natural charcoals includes:

• Belgian Charcoal 40mm Tablets - These tablets are 40mm wide, come in rolls of 10 tablets, and their standard size makes them more convenient and easy to use than lump wood charcoal.
  
• Japanese Style Charcoal - Each tablet comes scored to allow each stick to be broken into 4 equally sized tablets. Each stick is covered in a coating to help keep your hands clean and also minimize the mess caused by charcoal dust. Like the Belgian 40mm tablets the uniformity of these stick charcoals makes them very easy to use.
• Citrus Wood Lump Charcoal - Made from the wood of citrus trees such lemon and orange this charcoal is not processed into any shape. Besides hookah this wood is great for use in the grill.

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Hookah Grommets are those little rubber pieces that keep your hookah airtight. They are at all the different junction points in a Hookah such as between the hose and the stem. Because grommets are made from rubber and compress between connecting pieces they will eventually wear out and break over time. Try to always keep a few replacement pieces around so you don’t kill the party cause you dropped your clay bowl or a grommet is lost or broken.

A big source of foul tasting smoke is the pipe itself. Its sad to think of all the wonderful hookah smoke that ends up tasting like burning tires because the hookah it is being smoked from hasn’t been cleaned for many moons. Hookahs are simple devices made up of 4 key components: the bowl, stem, glass, and hose. As the smoke is created and travels through the hookah it contacts these key parts and carries with it any nasty flavors or odors these parts might be giving off. Personally I think smoking from a dirty hookah is blasphemy and should result in the Hookah owner being banished from the land of tranquility that is the hookah, but as an attempt to bring balance and order to this chaotic hookah world I would like to share a little known secret weapon that we have in our arsenal.

Liquid DFW was introduced to us by Big Mike, the owner of The Dragon’s Breath, as a cleaning product that his customers love because it works great and has a great price. We were highly skeptical that Liquid DFW would work because it’s made for cleaning glass hand pipes, but after running a few test we found that it worked wonders. A few minutes with Liquid DFW and our cleaning brush set will really make a difference on any dirty hookah. (DO NOT USE ON ACRYLIC PIPES)

Liquid DFW comes in 4 oz, 16 oz, and 32 oz bottles and in Red or Purple

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Social Smoke is proud to announce the newest tobacco in our delicious line up of Hookah tobacco. Al Amir recently unveiled a completely new line of exotic flavored tobacco, which was very well received by our staff during flavor testing. This line of tobacco is 100% different from the original Al Amir tobacco, and is made from a higher quality leaf, more exact and stronger flavors, and improved packaging. Currently Al Amir Exotic comes in 28 flavors and is packaged in a screw top plastic jar. Mint lovers will love the Mint and Lemon/Mint flavors which feature a strong throat cooling mint. Another flavor we really liked and we recommend for you to try is the Berry Blast.

For those that like to know the technical details the flavor testing was done using a clay Hemi bowl, with 1 sheet of Hookah foil, and two Belgian 33mm quick lighting tablets. The tobacco was loaded evenly accross the bottom of the bowl and just low enough to avoid contact with the foil. The tobacco quickly produced thick clouds of delcious smoke and lasted longer than the charcoal, which was perfect!