Smoking has always been somewhat of a social activity. Between party light-ups and the camaraderie accompanying smokers outside a building, smoking is a part of our culture’s past.

After a legal battle overturned a city smoking ordinance, most Ames restaurants decided to do away with smoking even without the ordinance.

Less than a year later, an Ames location has decided to open its doors — to only smoking.

The catch to this place is that cigarettes aren’t served. Instead, it’s a flavored tobacco called shisha. Shisha is used in the latest popular smoking phenomenon — hookahs.

Mohamed Ali, junior in management information systems, has opened The Chicha Shack, 114 Welch Ave., to bring some flavor to Campustown and to celebrate the pastime’s cultural background.

“Honestly, I think it was in all the states except Iowa,” Ali says. “I am the first one in all Iowa.”

Shisha, the all-natural tobacco used in a hookah, is mixed with honey or molasses to make it sweet and then mixed with fresh fruit pulp to give it flavor.

Potential customers may be apprehensive about the dangers of smoking shisha, considering all the health risks associated with smoking cigarettes, but shisha’s all natural fabrication lessens the risk of potential harm. In addition to containing no chemicals or tar, shisha also has less nicotine than a cigarette.

“Cigarettes say they have 1 percent nicotine, but they actually have 1.7 percent,” Ali says.

“Shisha only has .5 percent nicotine.”

The hookah doesn’t always derive all of its flavor from the flavored shisha, either.

Some hookah vendors add an actual piece of fruit, wrapped in foil, to the top of the hookah’s stem to act as a filter for the smoke to pass through, adding another layer to the shisha’s flavor.

Ali says he plans to offer this to his customers soon; however, at present, he offers a variety of fruit-flavored shisha that should keep hookah newcomers and regulars satisfied.

Though hookah smoking might be a brand-new concept to Ames, it is one of the Middle East’s oldest traditions.

“It started in the Middle East and spread all over to places like Turkey and Egypt,” Ali says.

Since its inception, hookah smoking has become a common part of everyday life in the Middle East.

Patrons of bars and restaurants often order a hookah to compliment their meal.

Hookah smoking is a pastime enjoyed by everybody, not just the wealthy.

“It’s everywhere,” says Ali. “When you go to a restaurant for a lunch, after, you order shisha, or when you go to dinner, you order shisha after your meal; it’s tradition. Everyone smokes it.”

Roughly within a month of the restaurant’s opening, Ali has seen a good response and says he already has regular customers.

“I don’t have any ads; it’s just people who’ve come in tried it and loved it,” Ali says.

Ali says he originally wanted to open a hookah bar as a place for foreign students to meet each other, but it has also managed to bring foreign and American students together.

Ali says the causal atmosphere lets groups sit on sofas and puff away at their hookahs — which can last up to an hour — while socializing with each other and commonly opening up to other groups of hookah smokers.

“It makes people interact with one another, people sitting next to each other will start talking and say, ‘Oh, what flavor do you have?’ and they share with each other,” Ali says.

“It’s a social place.”

A little bit of hookah etiquette

Hookah smoking can be a fun experience, but you should to keep in mind a few rules to make the experience enjoyable for everyone. Here are tips on how to act while enjoying a hookah.

• Smoking a hookah is about patience and tolerance, so relax and enjoy it.

• There is no urgency or competitiveness when smoking a narghile, unlike the smoking sessions using other glass or water pipes. So smoke until you are pleased and then pass it on to the next person.

• As a courtesy, turn the hose connection of the metal stem toward the next person as you are handing them the hose.

• Never light cigarettes using the lit charcoal on top of the hose.

• Never light a charcoal on top of the hookah — the smoke will overwhelm the tobacco flavors.

• Do not blow smoke in the face of another person.

• With a multi-hose hookah, do not blow into the hookah hose to clear the smoke while another person is smoking.

• When you are finished, wrap the hookah hose around the metal stem.

— Information compiled by Dante Sacomani from saharasmoke.com