I’ve only sorta-tried one once before, and expected harsh/miserable/weird, but it’s actually pretty lovely-tasting and relaxing (we ordered the “Blue Mist” flavor).
Also: Kendrick and I were just chatting about the health effects of hookah-smoking (not that we really have to worry; we’ve smoked exactly 1 1/2 times in our collective history), and we decided that it’s probably far less detrimental than cigarette smoking (the water removes the toxins…?), but apparently that’s not so: hookahs are no better than cigarettes, health-wise. FYI.