I am a fan of tobacco in it’s true form. Earthy, sweet, smokey, woody… It’s a product that is filled with a great variety and range of flavors. If treated properly from seed to smoke it’s an amazing thing.
That being said, there are lots of people that smoke tobacco that don’t actually like it. Many assume that hookah is for the smoking of added flavor and that tobacco has no real place in the experience. The truth is that hookah started with tobacco in it’s real form mixed with honey, oils, herbs, spices or molasses and smoked from the hookah pipe. It was more like a cigar than many are accustomed to today. Traditional tobaccos like this are still popular but are not as common or as popular as the more modern styles.
Salloum tobacco is a more traditional style of molasses and they offer a completely unflavored version that has nothing in it but molasses and tobacco leaves. It is very similar to the Al Fakher soft black that I reviewed recently but also quite a bit different. Salloum is packaged in a plastic wrapper which is then put inside a cardboard box. Nothing is air tight so any moisture that may have existed in the original blend is lost in it’s journey from Egypt to my home. It’s a solid black brick that is hard to get apart and far too dry to smoke from a hookah. To reviatlize this tobacco you need to do a little work.
Personally I suggest using a small amount of medium molasses (around 1.5-2 tablespoons per bowl) and mixing it with the tobacco and allowing it to sit at least over night. If you want to smoke sooner than that then you take the molasses and tobacco and put it in a ziploc. You then run it under hot water from the tap and massage it to incorporate everything together. It will be ready when it all feels soft.
Smoking this tobacco takes a surprising amount of heat and a good amount of patience. Because this has no glycerin in it you need to wait a few minutes before it will start to produce smoke. The flavor is sweet molasses and smokey quality. It has a slight mesquite flavor and lot of wood. It’s slightly sour and can get quite bitter at the end of the bowl. The flavors are nice but they are not for the faint of heart. They are robust and the strength of the nicotine is pretty beastly. Chain smoke this one and you will get sick.
6 out of 10. It’s good but not much different than Al Fakher soft black, which is a bit more expensive but far easier than preparing dried out salloum. If you are interested in black style tobaccos give this a try. It’s a cheap place to start and you don’t have to order a large amount of it just to figure out it’s not the style for you.
ineteresting article – where can we get this..would be relaly different to try
I picked it up in a local Middle Eastern market. If you live near a major city search google and you should be able to find one.