Back in the 1990s the nargile seemed to be on its very last legs, used only be elderly men in flat caps in the shadiest of teahouses. Then suddenly a new generation discovered the gentle pleasures of puffing on a water pipe and suddenly every other cafe was posting racks of nargiles in all shapes and sizes in their windows. Tobacco was offered in a wide range of flavours with apple especially popular. A rare few cafes also offered tömbeki, the real tobacco thing and a very strong offering for those not used to it.
Throughout the 2000s the alluring scent of apple tobacco floated in the air in many a corner of Istanbul. Then in January 2013 it became illegal to smoke a nargile in an enclosed space. This doesn’t seem to have dented the popularity of the hubble-bubble particularly.
A great place to try out a nargile is the lovely courtyard cafe called the Çorlulu Ali Paşa Medresesi on Divan Yolu in Sultanahmet. where most of your fellow smokers are likely to be students from the nearby İstanbul University. The medrese (theological school) was built in 1708 for a vizier to Sultan Ahmed III who later fell out with him. He was beheaded on Mytilene (Lesbos) in 1711 and his head was returned for burial beneath the complex he’d so recently paid for.
