Smoking Enigma like the russians

I’ve at one point got my hands on some Enigma tobacco, which is a brand made in Russia. I couldn’t track any official website for them, but it’s described on most Russian websites (run through Google translate) as follows:

Tobacco Enigma, is a dark boiled craft tobacco of Russian production, excellent for real connoisseurs, ready for high strength and deep, rich taste. 
Manual production allows us to achieve excellent results, and provide customers with a product of the highest quality.
In the process of creating tobacco tobacco sheets are used Burley, Virginia, due to which the strength of the mixture is above average. 
Also, this product is quite smoky and heat-resistant, it has a procuration time of up to 50 minutes, but it can taste bitter if overheated. 
The range of the brand is currently quite small, but the creators are actively working on its expansion.

Their range of flavours is pretty interesting, and I got Cream Soda, Kiss and Sakura from them. But then I made the mistake of trying to pack it as I’d normally try with a dark leaf, dense packed it in either an 80ft with a provost or in an alien mini. You know, the things you learn on tangiers. And boy, was I wrong. Packing it that way just gave me a full Russian experience: not much flavour, but a lot of punch. I’m no lightweight in terms of how well I can handle my buzz (I’ve started with Nakhla and by the time I got to Tangiers or Nirvana I was already too resistant to get buzzed by those. True story.), but that combination knocked me out.

I’ve chalked Enigma up as a brand I wouldn’t try again until someone on a group told me that’s not how he smoked it and he found it delicious. So I decided to try his technique. First I got another pack of Enigma.

This stuff.

Then I got an UPG bowl. Well, a clone of an UPG bowl. Don’t think there’s _much_ difference. I’ve loaded it in a fluff manner, just sprinkling the tobacco ever so gently in it.

By “I got a bowl” I meant “borrowed an old one from someone”. I swear my glazed bowls look pristine.

It’s surprising how little tobacco you actually need. 9-10 grams is what was mostly recommended.

And then you put a lotus-style HMD on top. I used an ignis.

If I fits I sits.

So the thing with this was that the flavour was significantly higher, and the buzz significantly lower. The tobacco notes were still heavy, but it wasn’t that overpowering taste I got with my other setup. Word of warning, though, this was when I learned why Russians like themselves a good molasses catcher. That thing went down my stem all runny. It’s also why I ended my session early and used the coals for some Nakhla.

As I was packing this I remembered that when I was first researching this tobacco on YouTube and just looking at videos with no sound (because they were in Russian), this was the pack I was seeing. It then struck me that this might be the optimum way of checking out any new shisha, find out how the people that produced it usually smoke. It’s most likely how it got tested and perfected in the first place.

The VZ Hookah Trident

So I’ve found the following picture from the VZ Hookah Instagram, though i had seen another shot of one in someone’s living room somewhere on Facebook.

http://vz-hookah.com

I love the aesthetics on the VZ hookahs, don’t get me wrong. If you’re all for that industrial, steam-punky look, it’s either these or Hellfire Hookahs, the latter coming with a significant increase in both weight and price.

But let’s not digress and discuss about this 4-stems-away-from-being-a-menorah thing. It’s surprising how the three-stemmed hookah was quite warmly welcome by the community when its long cousin, the three-headed clay bowl, is one of the very few things the same community would call worse than quicklights.

Say no to chemical warfare.

I assume the valves were put there with the idea that you could have 3 flavours, and smoke each individually, or mix them up 2 by 2 or even all 3 of them, but… does anybody do that, ever? Does a blueberry mint mix taste the same when you mix it one bowl compared to two separate bowls that now you have to heat manage separately? But I mean, yeah… valves.

You see, Ivan, we still have spare parts and empty vodka bottle. We make hookah, yes?

A deeper question that I have is whether or not there would be the same opinion about this particular contraption had it not been made by a brand that starts its models from a not-too-shabby $140 (9500 RUB). Is it the quality that makes this viable rather than the design? Would we be happy with the three-headed bowl if it were made by Mason or if it cost 90 bucks instead of being that drunk purchase off of Amazon? We’ll never know, I guess.

Alpaca Bowls Art Collection

alpacabowlsusa.com

Probably really eager to get a slice of the overhyped, collaboration, ever so limited edition bowls pie, Alpaca have now released their art collection. I usually don’t mind limited editions, especially Alpaca’s, and I don’t see any bad thing in collaborating with artisans and making artisan-level hookah stuff, but I honestly can’t see where the value is in providing a bowl with the black plague in glazed form.

Surprisingly, not a bowl recovered from the remains of a house that caught fire.

They currently are up for $69, though I could swear I saw them two days ago for $75.

Initial post

Rather than start with some poorly written introduction and whatnot, I’m just gonna state that I don’t really like the theme I have right now. Mostly I’m gonna talk about whatever’s new on my radar in terms of hookah.