Sitting in a cloud of cinnamon-scented smoke on the patio of House of Hummus in Murfreesboro last week, Nick Mackie chatted with a group of friends while absent-mindedly surfing the Web on his laptop.Mackie, House of Hummus’ manager, and his friends were smoking flavored Al Fakher tobacco through a traditional Middle Eastern hookah — a glass chamber filled with water that is usually a couple of feet long. Tobacco on top of the hookah is heated by burning coals. Smokers inhale the tobacco smoke through a hose that is attached to the hookah.
