Make mint flavor for hookah in 7 easy steps that are listed below.
Extracting flavor from mint
Preparing tobacco leaves
Add honey or molasses
Add glycerin
Bake the tobacco
Mix mint flavor
Keep the shisha overnight
Mint hookah flavor is the most popular among the entire hookah flavors because of its lingering cooling and refreshing effects. Mint remains a popular flavor in the culinary, personal care, hookah flavors, and pharmaceutical industries due to its refreshing aroma and zesty taste. The major chemical constituent of mint responsible for inducing a cooling sensation is Menthol.
If you want to enjoy some homemade mint shisha this evening with your friends but found the idea daunting, I will tell you the right procedure.
You can make a mint flavor for hookah by combining dried tobacco with honey/ molasses, glycerin, and mint flavor. You need to collect the following ingredients.
Mint
- Loose tobacco
- Honey/molasses
- Glycerin
Make mint flavor for hookah in 7 easy steps
Here is a step-by-step procedure for making mint shisha tobacco for hookah.
1) Extract flavor from mint
First, collect fresh mint and wash them properly, next remove the leaves from the stem while discarding the stem.
Chop the leaves and put the leaves into a clean glass jar.
Add vodka over the mint leaves; make sure that alcohol completely covers the leaves in a jar.
Keep in a dark place for about 4 – 5 weeks.
Shake the jar once a day and observe changes that take place inside the jar.
When the liquid smells strongly of peppermint and not alcohol, the mint extract is ready.
Strain the leaves, filter them, and fill cute little jars with the final extract.
If you don’t want to wait for weeks to get an extract of mint, then you need to pulverize the dried mint leaves and mix them with the dried tobacco.
2) Preparing tobacco leaves
Next, you need to air dry the tobacco leaves in a well-ventilated room or shelter. Once it is dried, break up the large pieces of tobacco leaves and remove the hard stem.
The dried tobacco leaves should next be thoroughly soaked in water to rehydrate. Soaking softens tobacco leaves and removes part of the nicotine content.
The longer you soak the leaves, the fewer tobacco flavors you’ll get in the final product, allowing you to taste more of that shisha flavor you wish to prepare, and also removing more nicotine content.
Strip out all the stems to avoid harshness, and unpleasant flavor and to reduce the nicotine concentration in the final product.
3) Add honey or molasses
In this step, combine the chopped leaves with honey or molasses and thoroughly mix them. The most common tobacco and honey/molasses ratio is 3 to 1. Mix 1gm of honey or molasses with 3gm of tobacco leaves. Honey/molasses are used as a natural sweetener that could enhance the taste of shisha tobacco.
4) Add glycerin
Next, add glycerin to the mixture and mix the ingredients thoroughly until the mixture reaches the desired consistency. Adding glycerin to your shisha flavor helps get thick hookah clouds and also enhances the shisha flavor. Always use quality vegetable glycerin for making hookah tobacco flavor.
5) Bake the tobacco
Before adding the mint flavor, place the tobacco mixture in an oven-safe tray and bake at 170 – 180 degrees. Bake the tobacco for around 50 – 60 minutes. This will allow the glycerin and honey/molasses to seep well into the tobacco leaves.
6) Mix mint flavor
After baking the tobacco, if the shisha tobacco seems a little dry then you can add a bit more glycerin or molasses.
Let your tobacco mixture cool down before adding the mint flavor.
Now add the extracted mint flavor to the said mixture and leave it for 20 – 24 hours in an air-tight glass jar till the tobacco fully absorbs the desired flavor.
7) Keep the shisha overnight
Once the shisha is cooled and you have mixed the desired flavor, store it in an airtight glass jar. Overnight storage will allow all of the components to thoroughly mix and blend.
Once the flavor has been absorbed, load up the bowl and enjoy it with your friends.
You can also make mint hookah flavor by mixing the dried mint leaves directly with loose tobacco, without extracting the flavor from mint, however, most hookah enthusiasts want to extract the flavor from mint and then add it to the tobacco according to their own choice.
