Flipping the hot coals on his green hookah in a crowded Beirut cafe, Abbas Nasreddine says Lebanon's new austerity budget has spoilt his daily treat of smoking a water pipe.

"It's how we deflate stress," says the 26-year-old university student, a long drag of mint-scented smoke rising overhead.

"But now our tool for coping with our worries has become a worry itself," he said, fiddling with the hookah's long hose.

Nasreddine is among many regular smokers who are displeased with a government decision to impose a new tax on water pipes as part of a larger austerity package.

They will soon have to pay an additional 1,000 Lebanese pounds ($0.66) for every water pipe they order in the country's cafes and restaurants. 

The World Health Organization has warned that a full hookah is equivalent to smoking 20 to 30 cigarettes at once, and has linked the practice to lung damage and cancer.