Inhale Or No Inhale?

[dank7oo]

Just curious to see what you guys do ... I am definitly an inhaler ... I love the feeling of the entire exhale having the tastey smoke not just the first little bit

[*HOT&SMOKING*]

Inhale.

-H&S

[Shifty]

Both, Depends on my mood and the harshness of the shisha towards the end. I do know that the hits get progressively smaller the longer the session goes on

[neophytex]

I definetly like to inhale, love the feeling of having your entire face covered in smoke and feeling all that thick flavorful smoke on the exhale.

[SafeSearchOff]

inhale. its a hookah, not a cigar.

my. .02

[lazria]

Both. I start off inhaling, but depending on the length of the session my lungs and body just can't cut it anymore and I (for lack of better words) sip it = not inhaling much.

[spoolinspoon]

Inhale x2

[stryet]

Inhale. It's the massive, tasty, light-headed, cover-your-face smokey hits that make hookah smoking worth it.

[symptom CY]

This question always baffles me, because it's not really possible to actually smoke a hookah without inhaling it. "Mouth puffs," where you only fill your mouth with smoke by pulling like you would on a cigarette (using only your mouth muscles, not your lungs,) only get you a tiny, almost flavorless wisp of smoke. Anything beyond that, you're inhaling. I've been at parties with kids who, while sitting there drawing medium sized hits directly into their lungs, are talking about how they don't inhale hookah. No offense to anyone, but it's absolutely bizarre to me how anyone could have so little awareness of what they're doing with their own body.

[nestormakhno]

Wait... it's possible to smoke hookah without inhaling? How weird.

[symptom CY]

You'd need a realllllly big mouth....

[anathema]

Don't most hookah enthusiasts inhale, if not all?

Inhale.

[Scoop]

uhh...you smoke a cigar...you dont inhale them.

you can smoke without inhaling, my father smokes that way and he tastes everything and likes it...he just sits and puffs away at it instead of sucking hard and inhaling.

[symptom CY]

Who said you couldn't smoke cigars without inhaling? Cigars are a different thing entirely -- that's how you're supposed to smoke them... a mouth puff delivers a considerable amount of flavor. With hookah though, you just can't get the same density of smoke and flavor with just a mouth puff... the composition of the smoke and the way it's delivered is entirely different.

[Scoop]

explain to me which part of your body tastes the smoke, and why mouth puffing gives you a different taste...

rofl

[anathema]

When you exhale through your nasal passages you can smell it and it gives the illusion of tasting it.

Mouth puffing doesn't give a different taste, but more smoke = more taste right...

whats the rofl there for

rofl

[symptom CY]

Hey man, I don't know that much about the body -- I just said I know enough to know when I'm using my lungs. Have you tried puffing on dad's cigars? It's a whole lot different from the vaporized glycerin hookah smokers refer to as "smoke" -- it actually IS smoke, produced by actually burning the tobacco, which means it's a lot heavier and a lot stronger. Given you've had the experience, there should be no explanation necessary to understand how "mouth puffing" a cigar delivers the necessary amount of flavor, and "mouth puffing" a hookah delivers a comparatively low amount of flavor. Two entirely different ways of smoking... there are too many differences to really make any kind of meaningful comparison.

edit: lmao Edited July 23, 2007 by symptom CY

[Scoop]

i was trying to point out theres no difference as to how the taste is delivered by making you figure it out.

[symptom CY]

Huh? I'm not sure what you mean, but if you're talking about comparing how taste is delivered in a cigar to how it's delivered in a hookah, there might be too many differences to list.

But yeah, Anathema is right -- mouth puffing doesn't give you a different taste -- after all, it's the same smoke, same flavoring. But from mouth puffing to full inhalation, there's an important difference in how you sense the flavor. Smoking hookah without inhaling, you just can't get the amount of smoke needed for a clear and vivid flavor sensation.

[Brownman18]

its all the same mouth puffing is probly 50% healthier i'd imagine.. and no possiblility of lung cancer.. i dunno i see no point in inhaling i get buzzed both ways.

[RossH]

Well, at least for me, if I would get a buzz either way, I would go for the billowing clouds of goodness. Inhaling is the best/only way to really smoke Hookah.

[tsm29]

its all the same mouth puffing is probly 50% healthier i'd imagine.. and no possiblility of lung cancer.. i dunno i see no point in inhaling i get buzzed both ways.

Laugh Out Loud.

[Big Boss]

When it comes to hookah smoking, asking "do you inhale?" is like asking "do you drive with your eyes open?"

[jelatin]

I definetly like to inhale, love the feeling of having your entire face covered in smoke and feeling all that thick flavorful smoke on the exhale.

Agreed

[symptom CY]

When it comes to hookah smoking, asking "do you inhale?" is like asking "do you drive with your eyes open?"

^ right.

What Brownman just said makes my brain want to explode. I don't even know where to begin. It's all the same? No... it's impossible to get full flavor and smoke anywhere near thick if you're not inhaling. Straight-up impossible. You'd need a mouth with at least half the volume of your lungs. And even then, it seems to me that, for lack of a better explanation, the smoke hits more of your taste/sell receptors on its way out of your lungs and into your throat than it could if you just take it in your mouth and blow it back out. I could be wrong -- I really don't know what I'm actually talking about, but I know that from mouth puffing to full inhalation, the flavor experience differs as much as night and day.

Is it even possible to get buzzed off of hookah without inhaling? It's not like a cigar where the nicotine concentration is so high that it can effectively buzz you by entering your bloodstream through your mouth tissues. I suppose it's theoretically possible, but it seems highly unlikely (unless, of course, you're smoking a poorly packed bowl of Tangiers.) Are you sure you're not inhaling? To clarify, "mouth puffing" is when you expand the space inside your mouth to draw air in (cigars, cigarettes... you can do it while holding your breath); inhaling is when you expand your lungs to pull the smoke into your mouth, throat and lungs. Edited July 24, 2007 by symptom CY