Written By:
Hajo Flettner of Madrid, NM
Hookah Connoisseur
03/26/2008

Smoking Zaghoul and Other Kinds of Traditional Mu'essel

I’ve noticed a lot of weird comments about one of my favorite types of mu'essel, Zaghoul, so I decided to correct some mistaken perceptions about that kind of product. I should mention that the following advice applies not only to Zaghoul but most traditional style mu'essel and tobamels such as Al Fakher Soft Black or Plain Mu'essel Salloum as well.

First of all it is not supposed to extremely dry but rather, Americans find it that way as a result of poor packaging on the part of Nakhla combined with the fact that Americans are not very interested in more traditional mu'essel products which means that Zaghoul stocks are often rather old. In Egypt Zaghoul is very popular and as a result, it is easy to find fresh stocks. Those that do will note that while Zaghoul is less moist then the more popular mu'essel products sold in the states it should be fairly moist.

The way I recondition Zaghoul is to take out enough to fill a small funnel with the scalli mod in place and mix it in a small finger bowl with a quarter teaspoon of glycerine and an eighth a teaspoon of black strap molasses. When doing so be sure to wet your fingers so you can get a good even mix without getting mu'essel stuck to your fingers. Reconditioning Zaghoul in this fashion results in a product pretty close to what it should be when it’s fresh.

When preparing to smoke Zaghoul I have found it best to use a broad, shallow, flat bottomed ceramic bowl of the style commonly used to smoke tombac with capacity of around 30-35 grams. Most American narghile fans lack such a bowl because tombac smoking is not too common here. Luckily, I found that the Tangiers small funnel with the Scalli mod works almost as well for this application.

When packing the bowl one should remove any stems as usual and sprinkle the Zaghoul about so as to “fluff” it up rather then “packed” tighly. The bowl should be filled to within 3mm or so from the top. It is my experience that the best hole pattern is a series of straight lines radiating out from the center of the bowl spaced an eighth of inch or so apart with each line having five holes evenly spaced.

A single finger worth of a high quality natural coal broken in to four parts placed at 12, 3, 6 & 9 o’clock is the best coal pattern to use at the start of the session. Once you’re getting a decent amount of smoke, quickly reduce your coal usage to two pieces and only add back a third or forth piece when you’re no longer getting a decent amount of smoke. Coals should be moved every 2-4 minutes to prevent burning the mu'essel. Depending upon your smoking style you should get 30 - 45 minutes worth of full flavour smoking before needing to add a second set of coals and a conservative smoker should be able to get a solid 60 - 75 minute long session using this method and one and a half fingers worth of coals.

Remember that a traditional mu'essel like Zaghoul doesn’t produce anywhere near the amount of smoke that an extremely wet shisha will so don’t worry if you’re unable conceal troop movements when smoking a traditional mu'essel. Traditional style products like Zaghoul, Plain Mu'essel Salloum or Shîh 'el-beled can give wonderful, rich and complicated flavours and textures using this method and provide a delightful change from the fruit and candy like tastes so common to the American narghile scene.