The sweet fragrance of hookah smoke fills the room as a group of people sit around the water pipe, holding small hoses as gray smoke from the flavored tobacco curls around their heads.

This scene could be in a dark restaurant or a crammed dorm room in the middle of the afternoon. The sugary smoke pulled through a hose on the hookah can be relaxing and result in a sweet aftertaste.

The hookah has traditionally been used as a form of smoking for hundreds of years in some Middle Eastern and Asian cultures. But more recently, hookahs have appeared in circles of young adults and in places called "hookah lounges" that offer the pipes in the same way coffee shops center on providing coffee-related drinks.

A hookah is a tall pipe that filters tobacco smoke through a container filled with water at the bottom. Smoke is pulled through as many as six hoses attached to the center. A coal resting atop a screen heats up the tobacco in a small container below. The containers for tobacco and water are made of clay or glass; other parts are usually made of metal, and the hoses are rubber.

The tobacco used in a hookah comes in flavors such as rose, cappuccino, mango or strawberry.

Brett Brinkel, a hospitality business freshman, said he often went to a hookah lounge in Novi with a group of friends when he was in high school.

"It was a Friday-night thing," Brinkel said. "Go to a movie, get some food, go to (the cafe). It's a cool sort of social event."

Retailers who sell hookahs in East Lansing said they have seen a noticeable increase in sales of the pipes and their tobacco in the past two years.

"During Welcome Week, we sold out of a lot of hookahs," said Mark Bezduk, an employee at Silver Streak and Krazy Katz, 317 E. Grand River Ave.

He said one out of five customers that come to the store will ask for hookah-related items. Two such customers were mechanical engineering sophomore Kyle Shupe and marketing junior Matt Koziara, who were buying boxes of flavored tobacco at the store Tuesday.

Shupe said he was introduced to hookahs when he lived in Holmes Hall with other students who smoked them.

"I tried it and enjoyed the taste, the smoke," Shupe said. "It wasn't harsh at all. It was refreshing, because of the water."

Koziara said he grew up near Dearborn, which has the largest Arab concentration in Michigan. He said he remembers being about 14 years old and smoking a hookah with Arab friends' families, including their grandparents.

"My parents never cared about it as much as cigarettes," Koziara said.

He said it was viewed as a social event, where a group of people would get together and do while talking and enjoying each others' company.

"A lot of people that live with us don't smoke anything at all, and they smoke this," Koziara said. "It's not a hot sensation. The hookah - you can just tell it's different from cigarettes."

Customers must be 18 years old to buy a hookah or the tobacco, just like any other pipe or tobacco.

There is some dispute about how healthy using a hookah is, compared to other forms of smoked tobacco, such as cigarettes.

Supporters argue that smoking a hookah is healthier because the smoke is filtered through water and the tobacco has less additives than cigarettes.

Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association, said no specific studies have been done about the effects of smoking water pipes yet.

"Proponents claim that the water filters out the dangerous material from the smoke, but we do not know that to be true," Edelman said. "We must remember that the cigarette manufacturers made the same claim when filter cigarettes were introduced, with disastrous results. As usual it is best to be cautious and avoid all tobacco products."

Julie Sawaya, owner and general manager of Woody's Oasis Bar and Grill, 211 E. Grand River Ave., said hookah smoke is not intended to be inhaled.

The bar and grill has offered a "Mediterranean night" on Wednesdays since the restaurant opened in 2001, Sawaya said, where customers can order an "Oasis Hookah" to smoke from at a table in the restaurant. Sawaya said she or Woody's staff members will instruct clients on how to use a hookah properly, including how to smoke it.

She said some critics believe the hookah nights encourage smoking, but Sawaya, who is Lebanese, said she sees it as a part of the Mediterranean culture.

"People associate, in this country, smoking a water pipe with smoking illegal substances," Sawaya said. "But there's nothing in it but tobacco and flavor."

She said it took a while for the Mediterranean nights to gain popularity, but she has seen an increase in clientele in recent years.

Sawaya said hookahs are a large part of Lebanese culture and she grew up around them as a common form of socialization.

"A lot of our clientele are nowhere near Middle-Eastern descent," Sawaya said of the Mediterranean nights. "It's cool to see people becoming aware of it."

Lauren Phillips can be reached at phill383@msu.edu.