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”.
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 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:
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Hookah Rants 