Written and edited by Ruby Lee Schembari
All photos taken by Ruby Lee Schembari
The last time tobacco appeared on the Red Eye Files, I talked about mixing it with hash and rolling it into a Middle Eastern-style spliff. This time, I’ll teach you how to make Kif, a mixture of chopped tobacco and cannabis flower popular in Morocco.
Kif has been smoked in North Africa for nearly 500 years, with no initial introduction date documented. Reliable information about Kif is hard to come by, as published articles are hidden behind steep paywalls, and others are riddled with AI-slop.
So, what I lack in historical information I can make up for by teaching you how to craft and smoke Moroccan-style Kif.
But before we get to crafting, you’re going to need a few things. To do this right, you’ll need the following items:
- A sharp kitchen knife; the sharper, the better.
- Tobacco; Any type works, but in Morocco the tradition is to smoke local tobacco.
- Cannabis flower; Choose whatever type of flower you wish to use. In Morocco, they’d probably smoke flower grown in the Rif, a region known for growing cannabis outdoors.
- A cutting board.
- A jar or something sealable to hold Kif in.
- A pipe or Sebsi to smoke your Kif out of.
Once you’ve gathered your utensils and ingredients, move on to Step 1: ration/weigh out your tobacco and flower.
STEP 1: Ration/weigh out tobacco and flower
Before we get to chopping up our ingredients, I recommend that you take an extra second to measure out or ratio how much cannabis to tobacco you want in your Kif. For this article, I’m using a 3:1 ratio: 3 grams of flower and 1 gram of tobacco. You can use a digital scale or just eyeball it. Adjust as you see fit. See photo for visual reference.
STEP 2: Begin chopping and mixing your flower and tobacco
As you chop, mix and fold the flower and tobacco together to ensure an even mixture. Additionally, chop the flower and tobacco finely, as you don’t want large specks of either to clog your pipe’s airflow.
KIF CHECK:
Before we go any further, does your Kif look something like this?
STEP 3: Put Kif in a jar or container with a lid and shake to mix flower and tobacco
Even though you mixed the two when chopping, I like to put it into a container and shake it to make sure they’re properly mixed.
STEP 4: Store for later or smoke it now
Kif does not require curing, as your flower and tobacco should be dry and cured before making this product, meaning it’s good to smoke now.
You can smoke this mixture in a normal glass pipe if you like, but traditionally in Morocco, Kif is smoked out of a Sebsi, a wooden pipe with a clay bowl piece. I do not own a Sebsi (yet), so I’ll be packing my bowl into a classic glass spoon pipe.
Final Thoughts:
Given that I used three grams of Nigerian Silver flower, this Kif smells gassy, earthy, and smoky. It has a strong musky taste backed by the smoky sweetness of the tobacco I used. It burns evenly and delivers a mellow head high that releases tension from the neck to the middle of my spine. Overall, this was a fun way to use some leftover tobacco I had, but I don’t see myself using this mixture often, as prolonged exposure to smoke can give you health problems like cancer.
Additionally, smoking cigarettes or loose-leaf tobacco can be addictive and can cause serious health issues like cancer or gum disease. If you are under 21, please don’t try this at home.
As I stated in How To Roll a Middle Eastern-style Spliff, It’s best to have never to start than to try to quit.
♦
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