Tangiers: Acclimating

[AmunRa]

I have been smoking Tangiers since it came out, and I have been through the learning curve with it. I have pretty much figured it out (Tangiers I mean), but one questions remains.

I see a lot of members recommending that Tangiers be stirred every few hours during acclimation, and also before making a bowl. When I first started using Tangiers, I spoke to one of the founders, and he told me that Tangiers should be smoked like it's stored. He used an example of stacked dinner plates. That is, when you first get a bag and open it, it is packed tightly into a little log shape. He was telling me that to pack the bowl, you should only pinch some off the log and put that in the bowl. (I.e. no stirring during acclimation or before packing the bowl)

Every time I stir mine, it dosen't smoke nearly as well as it does when I do not stir. Has this been noticed by anyone else? The only down side to not stirring is that you don't get the juiciest tobacco all the time when you make a bowl. To me, after you stir it once, it can never be as tightly packed as it was in the original packing because the leaves are so large and coarse.

Perhaps this is only my observation, but I would be curious to know what other's experiences have been with this.

[NickReppinThe909]

i always stir it so all the leaves get exposed to air

[mattarios2]

always stir every few hours or so

[mdl]

The reason you should stir it before packing a bowl is because the juices will trickle to the bottom of whatever container you are storing the tobacco in. Since the juice contains the flavoring, you need to evenly distribute the flavoring throughout the tobacco to get the best results.

Think of an orange juice container with pulp. The reason you are told to shake the container before pouring is to evenly distribute the pulp, otherwise the first few glasses will have no pulp and the last few will be nothing but pulp. Now substitute the pulp for flavoring. Your first few bowls will have little flavoring and last few will have too much and thus you will not get a consistent smoke.

As for stirring multiple times while the tobacco is acclimating, I don't bother. I stir the tobacco once before sitting it out to acclimate and then once again before each time I pack a bowl.

[Fluffy]

i always stir mine or it seems to burn a bit faster and the flavor dies out quicker

[MechAnt]

I stir maybe once or twice during a stint of acclimation. I always stir before a bowl. The man himself says to stir it so it looks iridescent before packing. I don't recall any recommendations for acclimation however.

[dafunk5446]

I stir every hour while acclimating just to be safe. I also tend to let it acclimate for about 4-5 hours even if it smells good enough to smoke, and always stir before packing any shisha.

[AmunRa]

Thanks for the help guys! I tried stirring red tea flavor and it seemed to help some. I think I had a "special" moment there with being a non-stirrer.

[staygone]

Tangiers is like a good martini, shake that tobacco and forget stirring.

-QM

[Sonthert]

Stirring should speed the acclimation process.

Not required, though.

The dinner-plate example I gave you was for packing a bowl...not necessarily acclimation.