News from these months

Well, again there’s nothing that enraged me enough to warrant a full post, so here’s some new stuff that happened lately.

The Shisha Messe Frankfurt was amazing

I don’t even know what to cover but here’s a small scoop:

• For an enthusiast convention, it was kinda disappointing to see how bad people are at heat management. I got in there like an hour after the doors opened and most bowls were burned, especially on all the stands that had blonde tasting.
• Germans are FUCKING.AWESOME at planning ahead. Imagine this huge hangar with like 500 hookahs going on and on and on and people smoking like crazy, yet the air was perfectly fine and the temperature was actually on the “cool” side.
• Zummeret might be a decent brand but they decided to have a stand with like 30 hookahs and no one to actually tend to the bowls. Every single one was burned.
• Chaos Tobacco was more interested in sub-par women shaking their questionable assets over loud music than showing why they’re supposed to be a leader in the German shisha market.
• Speaking of the German shisha market, there’s an overwhelmingly large number of brands that are the same shisha with different labels and that basically taste “non-descript sweet” 25 minutes in.
• Darkside stand was LIT AF and the Russians just freaking blew everyone out of the water.
• Fumari stand was hard to get to, but at least i got one of their rooks. It’s cute little thing that’s lower capacity than a regular rook but higher than the mini rook.
• Zomo stand was amazingly well run for a place with 3 people on the selling side and there wasn’t much of a queue although people kept buying.
• Social Smoke had the most interesting buying experience, where you’d go on the side, place an order, then they’d go back and bring you a locked bag like it was some fucking couture weed buying and not getting a can of overpriced shisha (sorry, guys, i like your Blue Raspberry, but you charged for 100g the same amount as everyone else charged for 200g).
• Maridan wasn’t there and I had to get some from other places. I have not found a blonde as good as this, ever.
• B2’s stand was surprisingly small, but well thought. The v2s up for display came in a range of colours, like purple, green and blue, which made me remember why i bought mine in the first place. I met the dudes there and they were amazingly nice and I can’t stress this enough, they let me fanboy over a precious cut and listened to my whining about not being able to buy separate PCC pieces. Still no grommets, though. I also got a semi sneak peek at the Kilo Bowl (more on it below!), in the sense that I saw it 10 meters away while they were smoking out of it on an F-22 and kept asking myself “how the fuck did they get a pink helyx?”
• I’ll be back next year, and my wallet’s already sighing loudly.

Alpaca “Illuminati” bowl hasn’t landed yet

While their tri-faceted bowl is still probably in the works or something, they did grace us with another product, which is their “First ever USA handmade ceramic substitute for foil”.

This biscuit is fucking moldy.

Now where do I start about this little thing that’s probably gonna supply a steady income due to it seeming to have the structural integrity of an octogenarian’s hip. It doesn’t even look like it’s gonna work very well, it’s like a screen that gives less heat. Nevermind the buzzword bingo with it being “USA” and “handmade”, which is something that has become the staple of overpriced items lately on the market, let’s focus on another buzzword that’s very fashionable these days, “first”. I would like to point you towards a video that’s dated three years ago:

This one even has a lip!~

This clip of HookahJohn’s “bowl gadget” even shows how awfully inefficient these are. And on that note, since we love talking about bowl copying in the hookah world and how little we should all stand it, let’s have another look at a HJ video from 3 years ago:

Jump to 1:52 for the treat

B2 announces two new products

Along with another release of PCC pokers, which I hope they’ll trim nicely this time around, B2 has announced a bowl, namely the “Kilo” bowl.

Have you left your fleshlight in the sun?

Now, I know I bash on B2 a lot, even though I met them at the Frankfurt Messe and they were nothing but nice to me, but this particular release gets me all giddy. This THICC BOI is nothing short of a beauty without even seeing it fully. The B2 Facebook page is teasing the “Take a guess at why we named it the kilo bowl” bit, and I hope to God it doesn’t actually weigh a kilo, because that automatically kills the gravity center for a whole range of minis and it also will mess up their international reach even more. No pictures were revealed with the inside, but I’ll assume it’s just a phunnel with maybe some gimmicky channels or stuff to stop people from saying they copied… well, phunnel bowls.

Update: finally a picture with the center emerges. It looks like a very nice, simple, bowl. I love that.

Looks like it has the depth of a predator with a wider diameter, that will work well with darks.

In another release that was just announced on the lowkey on some FB group I’m in, B2 continues their war against grommets. Since the point is to not supply a 50c grommet with your 300$ purchase, there’s a new redesigned hose connector out there to eliminate the need for a grommet. There wasn’t much said besides a picture, but I assume it’s for the F-22.

HookahJohn releases a new hose

It’s called the SoSo hose (probably has some meaning like the SAOCCA did) and at least it’s easy to pronounce. It’s a stainless handle that can be “treated”, which isn’t such a bad look for the industrial-style hookah heads.

https://hookahjohn.com

I like that the end is shaped so you can put mouthtips like the eclipse over it (or even the B2 tips which are basically pieces of hose, lol), but it seems like it’s got a good heft to it – 0.8 lbs is what I think John said? That’s 360 grams, which is quite heavy. The MYA aluminum hose handle has 245 grams and it’s already quite unwieldy. Maybe the weight distribution makes it more comfortable. Speaking of heft, this is a cool $64.99 for the whole hose, which I think includes the hose connector that grommetlessly fits on the SAOCCA. Cause that’s what the hookah scene needs, less grommets.

This is however the third HJ product in a row that’s aimed at the high end. It seems like HookahJohn is moving away from the “elevating the average joe’s sessions” mantra with what used to be amazing price/quality ratio products (and affordable, to boot!) and slowly inching in the “premium” market. On one hand, it saddens me, but on the other I can’t blame him. There’s a lot of money in the scene right now and why the fuck would anybody sit idly while others cash in on hype.

Oduman announces a new HMD

Oduman are the guys that actually made HMDs available to us poorer folks without inhaling aliexpress fumes. At the Messe they showed off their Oduman Monster HMD

Well, it certainly looks monstery

The top has just a small hole so it looks like this is going to be a “on/off” kinda thing in terms of the range of possibilities, and I have my doubt about the coals not blacking out. Not sure about the price, but I don’t expect it to break the bank, unless they wanna slap “artisan” in the description somewhere. You can see a small clip on this webstagram link that google gave me. There’s also a chance they were actually trying to show off the hookah since i have no clue what model that is. It seems like another one of those “travel” hookahs that don’t hold enough water.

New Bowl brand emerging

You can follow EA Empire Hookah Bowls on Facebook to see what they’ll be up to. At the moment it’s more of a project, and I know I said I’m not gonna rant on small emerging companies/individuals, but of course they slapped “artisan” on it, because why the fuck not. That being said, I wish them luck.

Zahrah Ringer is out

Not completely sure how new this is in all due fairness, but it’s here, it’s cute, it works well and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Rookies making cheaper beautiful hookahs without calling them “artisan rings made in the USA” or something.

I apparently stole this pic from HookahJunkie. I’m sorry and thanks.

New-ish releases

I couldn’t find something to fill a whole post with, so i’m gonna shoot a bunch of mini updates. Here’s recent stuff you might have missed:

Shishabucks announce the mini storm

In a move that will make me eat my words about becoming more budget-friendly, Shishabucks announced their new medium-sized hookah, and boy, am I disappointed.

/u/shishabucks

While you can rest assured that the final product will have a downstem, I’m very iffy about it: it’s gonna cost about $250 including the glass base (which still beats any of the other recent releases that want more than that just for stem+tray) . Also, you’re kinda bound to said base. There is an aluminum ring glued to it and you still get all that sexy spin-ery action, but Jesus Christ why the fuck would you not let me just choose whatever Egermann or artisanal base that fits both modern and tradi setups to put my stem on it. I salute the reduced profile of the stem since now it actually can build a hookah that looks coherent and actually quite sexy, but why stray from a system that both allows more customization _and_ expose us to the risk of the ring getting unstuck from the base? We’re talking about a brand where recently people have had metal parts inside the micro rusting like crazy, so the threat of the glue not lasting a lifetime (or well, until you eventually break the base) is very very real. At least it doesn’t need fucking grommets.

Alpaca announces a triangular bowl and a contest to go with it

After being done with the bowls with chicken pox, Alpaca got down to creating another thing that not many people really need but a bunch of us will want. Behold their triangle bowl:

/u/AlpacaBowlCompany

In a community where people are nowadays boasting about using foil and no HMD, which is like saying “yeah, bruh, chainsaws are okay, but some of us still proudly chop their trees with an axe made of stone” instead of citing it as a preference and nothing more, this bowl will hopefully have provost support, since not even the El Badia Arc will fit this. At least this way it’s easy to know where to place three coals and get an even cook, which is what I assume they’re doing. Let’s not forget Alpaca also has a Square bowl, but they’re still way behind Brazilians:

You don’t have enough edges to beat me.

The good news is that it looks like a Predator bowl with a twist. The bad news is that at least in the left bottom picture, the edges don’t seem straight. Like, lopsided. I hope that’s not the case. Anyways, you can head over to their instagram post and try your hand at naming it and win either the 18K gold plated one, or a simple one. They also ship it internationally, which is cool.

UPDATE: They called it the “Illuminati”. While “Delta” would have been the coolest name I could have seen for it, they went with fucking “Illuminati” bowl.

B2 F-22s have started delivery

Pictures of F-22s have been spotted in the wild, and what’s funny is that the one picture from reddit I saw today was a rose gold F-22 which was not in the initial list of colours. Oh, well, it’s kinda pretty. They also posted square trays up for sale:

https://b2hookah.com/

While the design is of the tray makes me wish it had narrower corner openings (somebody sneezing from across the room and your ash just going out of the opposite corner is a scenario that comes to mind), what’s cool is that it fits B2 v2s as well. It doesn’t fucking come in blue, black, green, gold, bronze or any other colour of the v2s except for red, but it still fits them. The pictured one is however a very welcome addition, I used to love the splash colorways on yoyos and the fact that B2 tried this is actually awesome. It’s cheaper than a v2 tray, at like $45 for the splashed one, but note it doesn’t have the same aluminum as the F-22 itself. I guess they went for 5052 because it’s easier to bend, which is fine, but the fact that 5052 compared to 6061 is marked as “not heat treatable” (Note: I have no idea what it means in this particular context, your coals may very well have 0 influence on it) and also that it’s not marked with the same corrosion resistance are things I think are notable. In the grand scheme of things, it probably won’t really matter.
The F-22 still doesn’t come with grommets.

UPDATE: Moe from the Hookah Discord was nice to explain a bit about the 5052 aluminum thing. In his words:

Non heat treatable means that the metal can’t be heat treated to strengthen it by the heat treating process they use for 6061 to make it strong enough to machine and support the weight and shit of being handled, pressed and all the other stupid shit people could do. Since the tray just has to survive a drop really it doesn’t have to be as strong and I bet it’s easier to anodize/not fade with the 5052.

Moe

So basically, 5052 is good for the tray.

The SAOCCA and the Precious cut poker

I’m not gonna go through the full HookahJohn history, because if by now you don’t know who HJ is, my blog won’t be much help anyways. Let’s just say that aside from Alpaca it’s the only producer in U.S. of reasonably priced bowls with great performance. Most are around the 20-25$ range, and while I prefer grabbing my Goodfella/Rook over the Harmony, my mini rook only gets used if my 80ft80 is dirty/wet, and I couldn’t find anything that smokes modern blondes for one round of coals better than an 80ft+provost combo. But that’s me. He also has coals, hoses and other stuff in that same performance/price ratio that’s just so, so sweet.

Well, he used to. In what looks like a reverse move from the ones from Shishabucks, it seems that HookahJohn just looked at the market and saw this:

Also slap “artisanal” on it, please.

First up, came the Knurl hose. This beast has a whooping 1.75lbs (793 grams!!!) weight and a not-so sleek look, making it probably useful for household protection or disciplining the neighbor’s dog.

Happy Knurl hose buyers, 2018, colorized.

Along with the heft of the handle, also comes a hefty, hefty $80 price tag. It comes in 4 models, each more baton-like than the other.

Available soon on http://monkeydungeon.com

Afterwards, the SAOCCA finally landed. The name comes from “Santa Ana, Orange County, CAlifornia” which is allegedly where these were made. It’s also just a great marketing move since it sounds foreign, I guess. Let’s have a look, shall we? In the words of the man himself:

Every time he says “SAOCCA” it sounds like he’s in a loud club asking for some exotic shot.

The SAOCCA is an anodized aluminum threaded hookah, CNC-ed, with a unique purge. All in all, a solid 2019 hookah. It has a bunch of colour variants, which is to say each piece has 3 colours (black, gold and silver) and then they were mix-and-matched.

Except for the inner heart part. That one seems to be gold all-round

The looks aren’t necessarily amazing to me and while the bowl port looks a bit… uncircumcised, it’s actually a very nice touch. It’s raised so you have a bit of space between the tray and the bottom of the bowl so if you want to go bowl-chained-with-bowl you can grab the current one from the least hot section easily. I very much dig it. The stem is pretty solid, it has a knurl-ish look that actually makes sense, the hose port is matched with the knurl to the point where you don’t need a grommet anymore. That sounds cool until you realize that this means there’s a chance your old-school leather hose with a wooden connector that you have specifically for double apple/pan raas might not fit.

The tray has little bumps so your coals won’t go black which is a pretty nifty touch and avoids needing to have it made from two parts or with any cuts. However, the overall design feels… unfinished.

At least you could say your tray’s radioactive?

I’m also bummed about the lack of versatility in the looks. You can’t really match it with much. Unless you grab it in full-black, you’re not gonna be able to fit a gorgeous purple Egermann and maybe a resin hose in a visually pleasing manner. Not even a revolutionary artisanal base that would fit both moderns and tradis. These feel primed to be the reason for you to also get a Czech Mate base.

And then there’s the price. OH THE PRICE. $290 for stem+tray. That’s some B2-level pricing and I never expected something like this from HookahJohn, but then again it kinda makes sense in the current market to price your product along the competition. But that’s a bit too steep for my taste. I don’t see it as completely implausible to see this video sometime in September though:

“Hey everyone, it’s John here from HookahJohn.com. I have some exciting news. You asked, we listened. I have people coming in the store every day go like <<John, this is amazing, but I wish I could afford one>>, people online are trying to find used ones for cheaper. Well, today, I’m revealing to you the Hookahjohn SAOCCA Sensation ‘Stravaganza, for a whole month, they’ll be 150. shows his SAOCCA he’s smoking out of. For just a hundred and fifty dollars you get the stem, the tray and you can match it with a czech mate base for another 90$. 100% American-made, aerograde anodized aluminum, for $150. That’s crazy, I know. Will I make money out of it? I probably won’t make much money out of it. shot of John going to a warehouse area with about 30 or 40 SAOCCAs in view. These are all that are left. Where are you? Where are you? points to guy working in warehouse Do you have a SAOCCA yet? looks at camera He doesn’t have a SAOCCA yet. I’ll give you one and keep it from your salary. Laughs exactly twice, while moving back to his office and sitting at his desk So yeah, guys, SAOCCAs, 150 dollars. Only at HookahJohn.com”

In other news on the other side of the “yeah, 250 for stem + tray seems kinda _low_, you get me?”, the F-22 is still in the pre-sale phase, but no worries! They just released the B2 Precious Cut Collection Pokers ! These have been teased over social media for the past few weeks.

Well, they arrived, and the shocking news is the picture above wasn’t a blank, it’s what actually is a $40 poker. Let that sink in. A fourty. Dollar. Poker. That’s shaped like this. What.the.fuck.

It’s not the price. It’s an artisan one-of-a-kind precious cut collection piece. So if it costs 40 bucks… well, it costs 40 bucks. Though there’s a case that a werkbund poker is 15 euros, even though you’ll need to sharpen it if you want really really tiny holes. The B2 pokers have that covered, to their defense.

But can the PCC poker also be used as a shiv?

The problem with this one is that it doesn’t give you much control. Here’s a thought experiment. Which foil pattern looks more like what you’d expect from someone that cares so much about his bowl packing experience that he’s getting a 40 dollar poker?

And this was done with some regular cooking foil, but we use hookah-grade foil. Here’s the same two techniques, but with that son-of-a-bitch foil:

In both cases, the patterns were poked with the same Fumari poker i’ve had since the end of 2011. The diference between the left ones and the right ones is that the left patterns were made with resting the side of my palm on the bowl, while the right were made with no support.

The good results on the right ones are just a testament to my awesome skills, but the thing is that people that want those sexy sexy patterns need to steady their hands by resting it on the edge of the bowl. This isn’t comfortable if possible at all with this toothpick-stuck-in-a-bar-of-soap kinda design. And it’s those sexy sexy patterns that you’d expect someone that spends 40 dollars on a poker to want on their bowl. If you’re at the point where you want to elevate your process to the point where you want an artisanal foil poker, you probably won’t be want your hole punching pattern to look like it’s a 4-week-kept-in cumshot from a masturbator with shaky hands. If you are, though, you can do it really fast with this little treat that circulated over social media, as well:

Just smash this a bunch of times and you’re good to go, Wolverine

To a lesser (yet still way beyond what would be in any way acceptable) ridiculousness, there’s this little baby that’s actually for sale on the website:

You can poke twice as fast now!

What the fuck even is this?! Does any actual hookah enthusiast ever want to poke more than one hole at a time? Especially in a time when average foil users are switching to HMDs that remove the need for foil altogether, while the foil enthusiasts are never going to actually go for this kind of mosntrosity? Are we trying to make the ebay poker shit artisanal now?

These utter blasphemies from plastic and metal

The question now is if we haven’t reached the point in the hookah scene where we don’t even think about our purchases and just throw our money at whatever “artisanal” manufacturers put out. This release of basically unprocessed blanks with a needle (or fucking more, while we’re at it, they’re literally a few cents a pop) in them is to me a slap in the face, a “should we throw these out, boss? nah, bro, stick a needle in them and sell them for like… 30? 40 for the bigger one”. To be honest, I’m done with getting stuff from B2 now. I really like my v2 and really wanted to buy more stuff for it, or get a full PCC at one point, but now… I’m gonna go Russian.

Mason’s never seen in America before release is … bases.

This is gonna be a weird one cause I’m really afraid of not doing a double standard kinda thing, protecting a small bowl maker in my previous post and then going in on this one. Hopefully someone will call me out if I do. Mason Shishaware is however a lot more established as a brand. And they try marketing hype. We do not like marketing hype.

Mason initially made a name for themselves with the Onyx bowl.

This little fucker. I was happy to find a picture on reddit from 3 years ago announcing the launch of the Onyx.

I own one and can’t really say I was impressed. The clay is good, the glaze is fuckin amazing, and everything else is… just run-of-the-mill. I think the word you could use is “unbad”. I can’t justify calling the Onyx a must-have in terms of performance, but I can’t justify not getting your hands on one if you have the opportunity. Think of it more like a HJ with collector’s value. Especially if it’s in one of the more limited colorways, like the Albinos. On a certain level, they become a sort of Fabergé egg equivalent, with collectors trying to haul as many as they can and them being resold for at least double their retail price. No, really, find one in Europe for under 100 euros. I’ll buy it and resell it for 100 euros.

The Onyx got upgraded to the Grand Onyx, getting a wooden sleeve which makes it match regals and stuff better. Okay.

Then you have the Helyx bowl.

https://www.masonshishaware.com/

The Helyx is something I’d like to get because it seems like it will perform great. It has the notches on the spire like the Rook, and features a very thick body, like the Predator, but that’s okay cause it’s Mason and they already had a fanbase so nobody actually called it. And it shouldn’t matter, but you know. We’re a weird fucking bunch.

Then there’s the Tymbers, with the Sapphires.

I actually just randomly chose one. They’re all that nice.

Unless you’re able to get a custom made resin piece somehow, there’s really nothing on the market like them right now. Even though they started off as a bowl company, I feel this is what’s supposed to be their bread and butter and their flagship product. They perform amazingly, they actually have a modularity level I’m content with, selling different tube materials and lengths, different sets of tips and basically allowing you to be able to do some cool setups. Rag on Mason as much as you want, but the truth is the Tymbers are fucking great pieces. They also gave birth to the eclipse mouthtips, which are essentially Sapphire tips with a bit of silicone and you can use them on more restrictive hoses should you want. Of course, there’s guaranteed to be trying to slip an eclipse over his sapphire tymber because you don’t _have_ to be smart to have money and the luck of being in the right timezone for a release.

So if you throw a non-hyped eye over the Mason lineup, you get the Gattuso experience:

Should we be happy we have Mason? We should. It’s really great to have the options. Should we overlook the not-so-good parts? No. And now that I finished my introduction, let’s go ahead to their new release

On the Hookah Smiths podcast on the 11th, the owner of Mason Shishaware gave an interview. I’ll timestamp the important bit, but watch it all. It’s a great foray into the mindset of Mason as a brand and it can clear up a lot of misconceptions. Especially about the limited batches and stuff. Unfortunately, I can’t embed the clip, so just click here and make sure you’re at 24:02 or so. Fuck it, I’ll even transcript it.

There is something that… I’m not going to say yet, but there is something that I’m going to be releasing next month and no one’s done, that I know of, in the United States. I mean, even overseas, but it’s another artisanal thing.

So what is it? Well it’s “the first hand blown in America artisan glass hookah base”.

Holy shit, my American friends, no longer will you need to put your 300$ stems without grommets in coconuts and gallon jugs! You finally have bases! This is the kind of hype I’m talking about, you tease some amazing artisanal new pieces, and you come out with this:

I have no idea how this MattPear laid an egg but I hope it’s gonna hatch a small russian that tends your coals. We’ll call him Boris.

So what exactly are these? “Each piece is made from USA glass made for artisanal use, the depth, clarity and quality is visibly different then[sic] that of overseas production glass pieces you may be accustomed too[sic] seeing on the market today.”

Okay, so maybe design on this spotted thing isn’t the best, but at least it’s USA glass, so it’s better than an Egermann for the same money, right? Ugh… I guess? Apparently, the U.S. has more lax definitions for glass and crystal in terms of quality than those overseas pieces of crap you can now buy for the same amount. The design is supposed to “blur that line with designs that will work beautifully for both styles of hookah.” (meaning traditional and modern.) Here’s what said design looks like:

Whether I like them or not isn’t really an accurate measurement on the success of the design, though I don’t like them. I like that they made colorways that fit the bowls. And they’ve already had a _great_ reception by the community:

Peasants.

Is the glass high quality? Yes, it’s pretty obvious. Is it miles ahead of overseas pieces of crap like the Egermann? Heh. Is the worksmanship on that base great? Yes. Do we need this for 130$? Perhaps? Meanwhile, let’s all cheer at marketing buzzwords, salute this never-seen-in-us-before initiative and totally forget about this 70$ Sahara Smoke base.

But does it blur the line between modern and traditional?

Bowls, copies, fanboys and haters

Today I’m gonna start with a suggested read: probably the most amazing article Cracked.com has ever published. But if you’re a lazy jackass here’s the exact point I want to touch:

Oh, wait, did I forget to mention that part? Yeah, whatever you try to build or create — be it a poem, or a new skill, or a new relationship — you will find yourself immediately surrounded by non-creators who trash it.

https://twitter.com/JohnDiesattheEn

Let’s say you’re a hookah enthusiast that also has a knack for pottery. You decide on making your own bowls. People see some and say “yeah, I wanna buy that shit off of you.” You make some and sell them.

And then one of those guys posts it on Reddit.

But is it as good as a mason?

Why do we throw this double standard at people? First feedback on it was that it was lopsided. Here’s my Onyx:

I zoomed in on the picture and it was a bit crooked to begin with. Deal with it and just tilt your head a bit. It’s good exercise.

Yet one is a very good artisan product that just requires the right grommet, bro, and the other is on the “I expected better quality” side cause there’s no hype around it yet. “If you choose to make something and sell it to people at a luxury price then it’s not asking much for it to be made properly.” Hear that, Mason? I want my money back. Or I could just sell it second hand and get 100 euros for it. Oh, wait, PEOPLE OVERPAY FOR LOPSIDED STUFF? HOLY SHIT, BATMAN.

And then comes the “omg copy” squad. Here’s the deal with phunnel bowls. They’ve been around for a while. Like, if you count the old-school “one hole without a spire” design, a very long while. But let’s say we place a T0 at when Eric released the Tangiers phunnel quite a few years ago. You only get like… what is it, 5 inches? to work with for the outside and there’s only so many ways you can actually prevent foil drag. And it’s also gotta be easy to handle. It is what it is. We’re at a point where there’s really only so much that’s new and even then those designs get continuously refined. That’s how it fucking goes.

But the copy callers usually play favourites and call the copies on their favourite brands. Do you hear many people upset about the micro looking like a hoob? Not really, but it’s fucking hilarious when you see one of these bandwagonners see a hoob and cry out them copying Shishabucks.

How much innovation can you put into a product at a time and why the hell are we saying no to incremental refinements/improvements/variations?

So which one of these fuckers copied which.

Now if you wanna make bowls, your clay and ability to make a good bowl out of it have to play in the background while you have to sweat your brain out to find whatever gimmick you can that won’t impair said bowl’s performance but allow you to call out “I’m different”. Gotta choose shitty colours instead of a nice blue, cause Onyxes are blue. Gotta be careful with using metal cause there’s a Skybowl out there already (not that we care much that there was stuff like the Minzari Crown beforehand. This one was innovative in using metal!). Gotta be careful with any trimmings and decorations cause there’s the Relyx. Don’t dare have notches in the spire, cause there’s the Rook. Holes in the middle of a closed spire are okay cause none of us are Vortex fanboys so we’ll not really care. Designs on the bottom are a no-no because of the Stone bowls. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

We’ll eventually end up with a bunch of Kaloud’s screaming and kicking about “muh design” and lose as consumers, in a market where you can already vote with your money, even if it means “I just want this cause of the sweet karma of reddit.”

How does this all fit in a blog where I’m tearing B2 a new one every two posts over grommets? Well, for now Hazy, Akimbo and other makers don’t really make a fuss over their releases or brands. They don’t have fanboy clubs yet. (Yet. The moment when you start brigading criticism comments you’re part of the club. Don’t be the same as the other fanboys. Downvote/ignore and move on.) Once they’ll start pre-sales, teasers, calling “innovation” for standard features, hype and stuff, well, I’ll have more brands to rant about. In the meantime, carry on.

The B2 F-22 has landed (kinda.)

Oh, B2, how much I want to absolutely love you, like I do my v2, yet you toy with my heart. B2 has given their website a facelift, in their words: “We realized how annoying and non-user friendly our site was, so our goal for the start of the year was to bring you guys an updated website with more of user friendly navigation! “. And more user friendly they made it.

I guess Parallax Shop is a good platform. Is that a hamburger menu?

Um… you tried.

The star of this particular website release is obviously their new B2® F-22™ (my God, I love all those squiggles so it looks all official and shit!) PRE-SALE! In a move that makes me proud of myself, you can nab yourself a pre-sale order for the F-22 at the price of $239.99. Let’s remember a veritable captain of the community calling it quite some time ago. And let’s notice that this is the pre-sale price, as it will retail for $279.99 afterwards.Now let’s see what you get for your money:

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. So let’s have a look at some of these absolutely amazing things it offers:

Domestic materials

Awesome, I have a KM at home that’s made with wild materials and it keeps trying to bite me when I ash my coals.

Modular pieces

Still means “matching threading”

Available in a variety of different colors

• Silver (Guaranteed)
• Penny Copper or Turquoise (Not fully decided)
• Unreleased Limited Color (Dual Color, colors not decided)

So that’s 3, one of which isn’t really a color. It’s also fucking amazing how the second color is either Penny Copper or Turquoise. I can only imagine wanting turquoise and getting penny copper. It’s like, almost the same, man. Hope you didn’t order a base beforehand too. Same goes for the unreleased limited color which hasn’t been decided yet, but that’s how special offers for pre-orders go. Right, guys? Right?

Unique Purge exhaust

I’ll give you that. Though in a world where we have the AMY Rocket, the Alpha Model X, or even the goddamn Shishabucks having a cool purge is only going to get you so far. Also note, every one of these is cheaper and includes a base and you also know what colours you get. Just sayin’.

Multi-use with different accessories which will be available

If the V2 is any indication whatsoever, there won’t be any accessories, maybe just a version of Precious Cut for the F-22 or *gasp* a screw-in diffuser.

Minimal ghosting

It’s well implied from being 6061 Aerospace Grade Aluminum with Aerospace Anodization but the picture we added on the website was very large so we needed more bullets.

Easy disassembly for quick cleaning

1. That’s already implied by having “Modular pieces”.
2. Contrary to what most people would have you believe, it’s easier to shove a 10$ brush inside a big-ass stem, scrub it for a … I don’t know, 30 fucking seconds? then run water through it, than disassemble your hookah into a million pieces to clean the threads of molasses that wouldn’t have been there if the hookah wasn’t disassemble-able in the first place. “Easy disassembly for quick and cheaper CNC-ing” sounds a lot more accurate to me and I’ll happily take it since CNC-ing a whole hookah sounds both hard as fuck and expensive as even fuck-er. But don’t tell me it’s because this way you can clean it more easily.

So what do you get for your money?

For your 239.99 (on sale, that is!) you get:

• 1 F-22 Tray piece
• 1 F-22 Body piece
• 1 F-22 Heart piece
• 1 F-22 Down stem piece
• 1 F-22 Tray
• A what pretty much amounts to a mystery color
• No base
• No hose
• STILL NO FUCKING GROMMETS

Here’s a thought: Why push these pre-orders in the first place? The whole pre-sale they made here looks like a badly run kickstarter and I honestly expected B2 to do better. My honest guess, is that this is because they had to put it out before HookahJohn releases his SAOCCA which he claimed was due in January. It seems to be delayed, but still gonna land pretty soon. It’s going to be also anodized, also with a cool purge system, also aluminum, also with threading for disassembly, but the pre-sale price was $190 shipped, it’s going to be widely availble (he says 5000 units) and it comes with fucking grommets.

Shishabucks and the micro-er micro.

This is gonna be pretty long, again. I feel like before I start to rant about one or two small updates I gotta start with a sort of overview. Next time Shishabucks has an update, it’s gonna be a small post. Pinkie promise.

Shishabucks is a good brand. Honestly. They have pretty good products, they have a very active social media presence, they understand people copy their designs (I’ll always be impressed with how casually they included the picture of the MS Micro in their album of the 2017 hookah fair), and their customer service has always gotten praises. Well, except when the light stands kept breaking. But that’s in the past.

The biggest problem with them is their fanbase. Whom never miss the chance to tell other people they have a Shishabucks and it’s oh so amazing and you should definitely buy a Shishabucks even if you’re trying to fit a whole setup in under 100$. The Shishabucks fanboy crowd are the fucking vegans of the hookah world.

The only thing that makes them worse is if they also have some sort of Mason product.

Shishabucks have made a bunch of pretty damn good moves in terms of what they put out recently. They pretty recently put out the Storm which is a rotator hookah. I got a bit of a bone to pick with the community about the storm because we’ve had a long tradition of saying that rotator hookahs are pretty shit, but as soon as Shishabucks released one people got all happy about a rotator. To be fair and not a bastard, the rotators that were available till then were pretty shit indeed. In terms of design, they managed to successfully create the first stem that looks great but you’ll never find a base that will create a cohesive, harmonious looking setup.

Something about the stem being so tall and becoming so wide at the neck. Picture stolen shamelessly from the Shishabucks Instagram page.

They also released the auto-sealable Cloud V2 hose which is a hefty $80 until you realize it’s for _two_ hoses and then it’s not as bad.

You probably expected a picture of the cloud hoses, but here’s a picture that I’ll caption with “Your dick when the water’s cold.”

The best recent move they made, though, is the “regular” Stratus, which is basically a stratus that’s a bit uglier. What’s damn brilliant about it is the pricing, which at $35 puts it on the same level with the provost and gets only undercut by the Ignis, while also leaving the premium version to battle the likes of the Lotus/Phoenix/Razor/NAR. Out of all the producers, it seems like Shishabucks understands business best.

The actual reason I started this post.

Welp, they just announced a new “portable” hookah. I was disappointed since they hinted about a new release in the medium area in some social media post, but that’s for later in the year anyways. So let’s look a bit at this submarine-y motherfucker. I know it’s a prototype, but besides “hurr durr I wanted another Shishabucks”, why the hell would you ever choose this over the micro?

• It’s not a lot more “travel-friendly”. You basically have a smaller box in which you fit the hose and stem. To quote Shishabucks themselves: “And you still can fit all parts of hookah (except bowl and heat manager) inside the acrylic cube during transportation.”. That’s cool, yet you’ll still need the space for a bowl and maybe an hmd. So in the end, you’re kind of at the same used volume. Maybe a bit less weight, too, but not nearly enough.
• However, the smaller profile means it will hold less water. I’d say at least 50% less water than the Micro. I used all the smaller Odumans and until the N7 all of them had the issue that there wasn’t enough water to keep the smoke reasonably cold. If you managed to smoke out of a n2 travel, this_might_ still work for you. But as it stands, the N2 travel holds about 250 ml of water, the N7 holds about 750ml and the micro holds like a liter.
• Not sure how exactly it opens to hold all the pieces inside but I doubt this little fucker is going to be as easy to clean as the Micro, where you can just stick your hand in the base and go to town with a sponge.
• The Micro can handle putting ice and fruit in it. You know, so you can upgrade those instagram photos with pocket flashlights and airpods.
• “Other issues that took a while to solve was avoiding water in the hose and avoiding water in the bowl during purging”. These weren’t issues with the Micro in the first place, and by the looks of it, I know at least three motherfuckers that are still gonna suck up half the water with a drag.

The hookah is supposed to be a under-$100 retail, which makes it a direct competitor to the Oduman travel lineup (unless you also count the Oduman Micro, but that’s a fucking jar, bro. Not even a large one.).

I think that given the recent Regular Stratus, this little bastard and also Shishabucks claiming to be working on a “budget friendly bowl”, this is part of a shift into also covering this lower-budget segment of the hookah community. I salute it, and can’t wait to see this new generation of Reddit circlerjerking proudly displaying their budget Shishabucks. Fuck it, I’ll join if the medium one is going to be cool enough.

Starbuzz and the HMD that could have been

Oh, boy. Starbuzz. This is gonna be a long one. Mostly cause Starbuzz is probably the most complete brand out there. They have hookahs, accessories, tobacco. Even exotic things such as vape cartridges and fucking car freshners. I think they only miss the coals. Actually, nevermind.

Obligatory part of the “Store clerk heavily recommended this” starter pack.

I’ve never been a fan of Starbuzz shisha, even their most recent Serpent line has been kinda disappointing. Okay, pretty damn disappointing considering this is their second attempt after the vintage line to get into the dark leaf game and they’re still trailing the likes of Trifecta or Azure like there’s no freaking tomorrow. I haven’t had the Alchemist KFC line to see how it fares against that, since that seems like the most close competitor they’re after. Unless you’re the rookie still hooked on Blue Mist, their shisha line is a “fuck it, I’ll buy this if you don’t have anything else in stock” at best. Even considering people have individual tastes, life’s too short for you to spend your 20-something bucks on Starbuzz. Just don’t.

What if we make it look like a gun? Are we cool now?

Their hookahs range from their initial older models to the newer aluminum ones and most recently the Starbuzz Carbine. Though it looks like the Mashisha Venom a bit spruced up (which in turn is most likely a knock-off, since that’s what they do), it’s regarded as a good hookah and people are gladly paying 300 bucks for one. Fuck it, at least they give you grommets.

As far as other accessories go, they’re the biggest proponents of the original vortex bowl (you know it, the one you were excited some years ago before figuring out it’s not really a great bowl), and they recently had a collaboration with alpaca to make a vortex bowl out of what’s actually good clay. It’s called the Stone Vortex, look it up. They also have the Goliath bowl which is awesome for when someone says he smokes for 4 hours and you get to ask them “from a Goliath, right?”

But the star of today’s show is the Starbuzz HMD, called the NAR.

This clunky motherfucker which looks like the result of an orgy between an espresso machine coffee holder, a garlic press, a turkey thermometer and an old Sherman tank can be viewed more in-depth here : YouTube link . The design is actually pretty cool, and even though it requires preheating and doesn’t have a handle to change the lid size, just like the Phoenix, it at least allows the hot air to travel through the sides instead of just shooting it up straight into your spire. The thermometer looks like a gimmick that’s probably gonna spawn a bunch of reddit threads about “what temperature do you smoke your X at?”, while also ignoring the fact that when you pull the temperature actually changes. The lid screeches like some hellspawn when you turn it, and overall it looks like it just won’t be able to have enough heat. Actually, initial reviews pointed that preheating is less a “can” and more of a “must” for this HMD, which is not exactly what I’d like.

The only redeeming thing about this release is that they actually hit a sweet spot in price point. It’s priced at $65, which while on the pricey side, doesn’t put it at a price disadvantage compared to the premium stratus, the Lotus II or the aforementioned Phoenix HMD. It’s definitely going to find a spot in the hauls of hardcore fans and experimenters, but I find it to be a good design with lackluster execution. Maybe a future iteration will bring the wall/bottom holes design from the NAR with a bit more space and a thinner wall, a la provost, and an improved lid. I’d actually buy one of those. I’ll even ignore the thermometer.

New B2 Hookah products

On their official Facebook page, B2 have announced their B2 Scorpion in what I think it’s their first full-blown picture of one of these hookahs.

B2 Hookahs

Okay, so this looks like their attempt of getting in the growing niche of CNC-ed Russian-style hookahs, but adding their signature gorgeous anodizing to the mix. Well, at first glance… not a huge fan. The thin stem into the thick chamber looks like one of those sausage-making extensions for your chopping machine.

Or one of those whipped cream spitzers. Depends how much you like bratwurst.

They also re-did the purge to be cooler.

Here’s a video.

It looks pretty cool, if you ignore the fact that it looks like your Volkswagen Touareg has a busted radiator. It also features a new style tray, that by the looks of it is similar to the B2 tray design, with two actual trays one in the other, so you can put your coals on it and not go out. It’s also quite a novel design I haven’t seen anywhe..

Nevermind.

The price has yet to be announced, but given their other price points, and their knack for selling a $300 stem without a grommet, I don’t expect this to be less than $230 or so for stem + tray combo. If we’re lucky. B2 announced these as “pre-orders” soon, which makes me fear them not pulling a Kaloud, hyping up products before even anybody gets to try them. At least they allowed us to see the hookah before pre-ordering unlike Kaloud did for their Lotus II.

In other news, B2 also teased two new products, DYNAMIC and PARAMOUNT without any hint so far about what they are. Speculation makes me think mostly HMD and maybe a Skybowl competitor. We’ll see.

Update: The tray that was displayed on the scorpion is one out of two possible designs. The first one got teased as the “F22”. The good news is that this isn’t one of the Dynamic/Paramount teased products. The bad news is that one of them is probably the other tray.

It doesn’t even seem to have the bottom holes like their v2 and v3 trays. T_T

B2 and the unfulfilled modularity

The B2 v2 is a gorgeous piece. Just look at it.

https://www.b2hookah.com/

It features full CNC-ed aluminum, gorgeous tints of anodizing and it smokes like an absolute beast. It doesn’t, however, feature a grommet. You pay $300 for a stem and then shell out another $60 for their trays and you don’t get a 50c grommet.

One of their key selling points is that their hookahs are “fully modular”.

We actually mean you can make it shorter.

What does their “modularity” mean? Well, it means that you can:

• Unscrew the diffuser
• Change the purge to a second hose port
• Get a longer downstem (no longer available, can’t really find it on their site anymore. maybe I’m wrong?)
• Remove some center pieces to make it different lengths

You can probably recognize the first two as something we like to call “completely common features”, while the last one is a reasonably nice feature should you actually want to use it. Then again, there’s so much more that B2 could actually do to fully kill it and actually gobble up a whole chunk of the modern-style hookah market. They have the machinery and the expertise to actually put out optional modules that would definitely make a B2 an even more appealing purchase:

• A molacatcher
• 18.8 fittings so you could add whatever molacatcher you’d like
• Separately purchasable PCC pieces. (of course, for a premium compared to the difference between getting a Precious cut and a regular v2)
• A different diffuser, more like the ones on the Mattpear, that could make the hookah completely silent, even if at the cost of the draw wideness. I’d definitely be up for a bit more restricted draw during watching a movie if it means no bubbling sound.
• Separately purchasable stem pieces, in the whole variety of anodizing colours. I could make a 120cm tall wasp-themed hookah by alternating black and gold pieces on a golden Egermann (just picture it!). Or build it to support your favourite football team.
• Small decorative rings in various anodizing. Just put a nice blue one somewhere on the middle of the stem and have it match your base even more.
• A new top part that would allow even more tray possibilities. I’m talking about this one mostly cause I can’t hang this one in my closet like I do with my egyptians.

Will they ever do any of these? Unlikely. B2 is mostly concentrated on putting out new stuff, instead. A pity. If any of you guys has a CNC shop and would like to put out some of these, I’ll happily be a customer.