Traditional Moassel
Nakhla Zagloul
Cut: Thick, sticky, black in color.
Duration: 1 hour +
Clouds: Somewhat thin, on par with a traditional tobacco.
Flavor/Smell: Wonderful, complex, and Nutty.
Heat Management: A walk in the park, you literally cant fuck this up.
Buzz: Medium Strong
Overall: 10/10 Awesome. A great place to start for anyone that is at all interested in traditional style moassels.
Nakhla Bata
Cut/Color: Thick, sticky, black in color.
Duration: 1 hour.
Clouds: Thin.
Smell/Flavor: Very smoky and robust, somewhat like a very strong Khan.
Heat Management: About like all Nakhla, fairly heat resistant.
Buzz: Strong, I don't normally get much of a buzz but this one did it for me.
Overall: 10/10 Super interesting smokey flavor... I defiantly recommend you try this if you can get your hands on it .
Nakhla Khan El Khalili
Cut/Color: Thick, sticky, black in color.
Duration: 1 hour+
Clouds: Ample, though not as thick as most modern moassels.
Smell/Flavor: Similar in taste to Zagloul but carrying a deeper flavor and earthier tones.
Heat Management: Very simple, much like zag.
Buzz: Medium Strong.
Overall: 10/10 Much like zag, just deeper for lack of a better term. I highly recommend this to traditional moassel lovers.
Al Fakher Soft Black
Cut: Fine, wet, black in color.
Duration: 1 hour +
Clouds: Thinner than AF generally is for the most part, but is capable of some impressive clouds.
Flavor/Smell: Mildly sweet, a bit earthy but all together much less overwhelming than Zag or Khan.
Heat Management: A bit tricky, like most tobaccos by AF.
Buzz: Light to None
Overall: 10/10 The flavor of this tobacco is wonderful and very unique, defiantly something you should try if you ever get the chance. I would suggest you try Zagloul first, sadly Soft Black only comes in 1 kilo tubs.
Saloum Plain
Cut: Thick, sticky, black in color.
Duration: 1 Hour
Clouds: Fairly thin.
Flavor/Smell: Nice full, robust, and smokey flavor
Heat Management: About like Nakhla.
Buzz: Medium Strong
Overall: 9/10 Kind of the in between of Soft Black and Khan. If you are a black leaf smoker you should have this in your stash.
African Kass
Cut: Thick
Duration: 1 hour
Clouds: Thin, almost Jurak thin.
Flavor/Smell: Very overwhelming almost acrid flavor.
Heat Management: About like Nakhla.
Buzz: Strong, I was buzzed a couple of hits into the bowl.
Overall: 8/10 Not sure how to treat this one... It has a very odd flavor. I would only recommend it to veteran smokers.
Pulevski Sweet Lula Tobac
Cut/Color: Very moist black tobacco with a medium cut.
Duration: 1 Hour+
Clouds: Decent, about what you would expect form a traditional tobacco.
Flavor/Smell: Very hard to explain, deep and nutty, somewhat creamy.
Heat Management: Doesn't seem as though this moassel likes heat too much.
Buzz: Pretty good. Nothing major but I was buzzed a bit.
Overall: 10/10 This is one of the most amazing moassels I have ever smoked, it has a very nice yet unexplainable flavor to it. As to my knowledge it is a tobacco that is no longer in existence due wars in the middle east where it was made. If you somehow stumble across this pay whatever is asked for it, it is well worth whatever price tag it comes with.
Jurak
Jurak is another traditional arab tobacco smoked out of a hookah. Jurak unlike moassel or shisha is more like a paste, it's very finely ground very wet tobacco that requires a vast amount of heat to smoke. Jurak is very rare in the United States to my knowledge it isn't sold in any tobacco shops and as far as I know there is only one place on the internet to get it. If your looking for Jurak check out the "Respectable Vendors" section, you may not be able to find the blends I have reviewed as jurak is extremely rare in the us and has to be imported from the middle east, allot of the jurak I have is the only batch of that specific flavor I am likely to ever get. Clouds will not be reviewed in this section, jurak does not produce particularly thick smoke and should be smoked purely for the enjoyment of the flavor.
"Number One"
Cut/Color: Very fine cut almost like wet sand, pitch black in color.
Duration: 1 hour+.
Smell/Flavor: Very strong tobacco smell, the flavor is very rich and earthy with some creaminess.
Heat Management: This stuff takes an insane amount of heat, I doubled my heat.
Buzz: Medium.
Overall: 9/10 This is really an amazing smoke, I have never had anything like it and probably never will have anything like it again, unless Bassem continues to carry it.
"Maher" Black Leaf
Cut/Color: Very fine, sticky pitch black paste.
Duration: 1 hour+
Smell/Flavor: Smells very strong, though not as strong as the number one... Earthy and spicy.
Heat Management: Takes heat like crazy, I use about 3-4 coals to get this stuff going.
Buzz: Medium.
Overall: 10/10 I personally like this jurak a bit better than the number one, It's flavor is a little less strong and a has a nice spice to it.
Red "A'7mar" Jurak
Cut/Color: This cut closer to moassel than the other Juraks, very fine in comparison to Al Fakher.
Duration: Hour and a half or more.
Smell/Flavor: Very creamy vanilla and some other fruit, either strawberry or cherry.
Heat Management: Won't take quite as much heat as other Jurak, used 2 coals rather than 3.
Buzz: Medium light.
Overall: 10/10 Wonderful creamy fruity flavor that is very different from normal moassel fruitiness, very smooth. I'm saddened that I only have a very small amount. I'll be trying to recreate this flavor in a homemade moassel sometime in the near future.
Hills Brothers Jurak
Cut/Color: Tick cut, wet, very dark red in color almost black.
Duration: 45+
Smell/Flavor: Very strong in smell, somewhat musky and perfume with some bits of fruitiness.
Heat Management: Takes very little heat compared to most juraks.
Buzz: Wicked, I started feeling a buzz after the first hit of this stuff.
Overall: 10/10 Different from most of the juraks I have smoked in almost every way, has a very relaxing flavor coupled with a nice buzz.
Tombac
Isfahan Iranian Tombac:
Cut: Whole tobacco leafs, the leaves are pressed into a brick before they are dried.
Duration: 1 hour or more, depending on how high you pile your tobacco.
Clouds: Not real thick, this tobacco is defiantly not meant to be smoked for clouds but rather for flavor.
Flavor/Smell: Smells rather sweet and has kind of a green tea flavor to it.
Heat Management: Simple... For god sakes it's smoldering, you can't fuck it up.
Buzz: Medium Strong
Overall: 9/10 It's actually an amazing flavor and relatively easy to load and smoke, prep is a little bit of a pain but not hard by any means. If you ever get a chance to try some of this don't hold back. Great experience. One thing to remember with this tobacco is it must be puffed on like a cigar, not inhaled.
