The Maiden Voyage

[garykainz]

Well, my very first hookah purchase arrived today. I ordered a 1 Hose, 26" red Sphinx with all the freebies (two packs of tobacco (Romman Orange and Mint), two rolls of coals (Golden Coals), bowl screen, base protector, mouthtips, filters, traditional windcover, tongs, cleaning brushes, and carrying case) from hookah-shisha.com. When my hookah arrived, it was packaged very well. I wasn't afraid of anything being broken (which is great, in my opinion). I unpacked everything, and gave the hookah a wash (as the instructions suggested). Then I looked at my hand and saw some red stuff on my hand. Lo and behold, the red paint (or stain or whatever it is) on the glass base was starting to come off! WTF is that? Surrendered to the fact that I didn't really care about the paint starting to come off (and it was covered by the matching base protector anyway), I let everything dry and began to assemble my hookah. When i put it all back together, I found out that the hose and bowl gromets didn't really fit right. The hose one fits fine after I pushed it way up the hose, but the bowl gromet doesn't really work at all. It fits almost flush in the bowl, but when I push the bowl down on the stem, it just pushes the bowl up until it's so loose, I don't even want to try using it.

So, after fighting with my dad about smoking it on my porch, I packed it all up in the carrying case (quite nifty, even if the windcover doesn't fit in the bag), and took it over to my buddy's to take the maiden voyage. We lit up my Al Ajdad coals (2, about 1'' a piece), filled the base (no ice was available, unfortunetly), put the stem on, checked the seals by pulling with the stem covered (without the bowl) and it was all tight. I packed the bowl with Romman Orange and Romman Mint (my 2 50 gram samples, probably 75% orange, 25% mint), covered the bowl with the screen, and put the bowl on the stem, hoping that the gromet had magically fixed itself. It hadn't. We tried smoking with the bowl on the stem (no gromet) and it took a very, very long time to get any smoke, but we got a bit. Then we decided to try with the gromet, even though the bowl was very loosely on the stem. It worked a little better, but then my buddy decided duct tape was the best way to go, so we taped it up, and it worked perfectly. We smoked the 2, 1" Ajdad coals down, and then added half a Golden Coal till we smoked the shish down. The session lasted between an hour and a hour and a half (with 4 people smoking), which was awesome.

The Romman Orange/Mint combo was awesome! I like to put mint with pretty much everything, but this was one of the better mixes.

The Al Ajdad coals were great as well. No charcoal taste, nothing bad to say about them. The Golden Coal, while it smelled pretty charcoal-esque when we lit it, burned nice and the smell dissipated. There was a slight taste to it for a couple of pulls, but it went away pretty quick.

All in all, this was a great maiden voyage. Aside from the bowl gromet (any ideas?) the whole session was awesome. I am definetly in love with my new Sphinx

[cemab4y]

I have had the problem of the bowl not "mating" with the stem a few times. Remember, bowls are handmade, and the inside diameter will vary with each bowl. Solution, is to get some plumber's friction tape, (available at a hardware store, or home depot). Cut a piece long enough to wrap around the stem, where the bowl fits. Wrap the tape carefully around the stem, and trim the overlap, so that you have a circular fit, with no bumps. Then GENTLY press the ceramic bowl down on the stem, and the friction tape will ensure an airtight seal. You can also use a "bandage" made of a paper napkin, wrapped around the stem, but you need to replace it each time you change the bowl.

[The King]

Mine didn't even come with a grommet... It sits on their alright, definately not airtight, but I get big white clouds everytime anyways

[lazria]

try wrapping a wet paper towel around the base of the bowl

1 of my hookahs have the same trouble w/ it's mod bowl - it won't seal, the grommet smooshes down and won't make a tight seal!

[MAKCuMG]

I ordered a bowl and screen combo recently from hookah-shisha.com and when I received it, the bowl did not fit on my stem (the grommet that i had was too skinny). So i called them up and they sent me a new one for free the same day. Call them, they are very, very polite and helpful.

[garykainz]

I just used the LiveChat on hookah-shisha.com to talk to someone about my grommet problem. They just told me to wrap it in paper towel and it will seal.

That's all and good, but I kinda expected more ("I'm sorry to hear that, let me ship a new grommet to you" or something similar). I mean, I just dropped a pretty good wad o' cash on my hookah, it should all work correctly, without me having to tweak it, right?