Aug
The Heba Diffuser: Why a little piece of plastic makes a huge difference
I’m often asked, “Is the Diffuser any good?”
To that question, I always reply “It’s my favorite accessory that we sell! No hookah is complete without one.” I realize that’s a pretty bold statement, considering all the other factors that go into a pleasurable hookah smoking session, but I do believe that if you are looking for the smoothest, most flavorful hookah smoke, you are doing yourself a disservice if you have not tried the diffuser.
If you are not familiar with this product, you may be asking yourself, “what is a diffuser and how can a $10 product make that much difference when smoking hookah?” To the untrained eye it may only look like a piece of plastic with a bunch of holes in it but to those in the know, it’s one of the most effective ways to enhance the flavor of your shisha and improve the quality of the smoke you are getting from your hookah. So, how exactly does this work?
When hookah smoke leaves the bottom of the downstem, it naturally forms large bubbles of air/smoke within the underwater environment of the base. The water in the hookah filters out certain elements of the smoke, including some of the nicotine. When the bubble reaches the surface of the water, the smoke is released and travels through the hose into your mouth and lungs. The diffuser acts as a screen that all these large bubbles need to pass through. It has many holes in it, which serve to break up the larger bubbles into dozens of much smaller bubbles. When this happens, the total surface area of all the bubbles is increased dramatically, which results in much greater filtration by the water.
| Let’s look at this example. Use your imagination and think of this beach ball as filled with smoke. This represents a bubble from a hookah without a diffuser, and the green shaded area represents the smoke that is touching the water. Not much huh? The water only comes in contact with the smoke on the edge of the ball, while the rest of the smoke inside goes unfiltered. |  |
Now lets take that same volume of smoke that was in the beach ball and fill a bunch of ping pong balls with it:
 |
These are bubbles from a hookah WITH the diffuser in place. Just like the beach ball example, the green areas represent where the water is touching the smoke, and as you can see, what a difference it makes. More water touching the smoke = increased filtration = cooler, denser, more flavorful smoke. |
Don’t let your hookah be without one!
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Frank C. and I have one of these, it just lives on our large syrian. I miss the loud bubbling, but the smoke is great!
August 19th, 2008 at 9:57 pmThe diffuser is great. I put the small one on the “junior” hookah at the cigar store i work at and the big one one my Stratus at home. The smoke is much smoother
September 7th, 2008 at 11:35 amThis is a wonderful idea and I was very excited when ordering but… I wish I could get it to fit one of my 8 hookahs.
If you have a Egyptian hookah that has the large flared bottom, this will not fit. I suppose one could use a hacksaw and cut off the flare at the bottom of the downstem but, I don’t have the nerve to try it on mine.
September 19th, 2008 at 7:45 pmLes,
A trick you can do to make the diffuser fit over those downstems that have that nut on the bottom is to take some scissors and cut a little slit in the clear rubber on the part diffuser that slides over the downstem. This will make the opening wider and able to fit over it, without resorting to mutilating your hookah!
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm[...] forrás:hookah-shisha [...]
November 7th, 2008 at 1:53 pmAnother benefit of this accessory…the loud bubbling noise is muffled to a large extent. This doesn’t seem important, unless you are trying to watch a movie, or live in a space (college dorm) where it is against the rules to smoke anything inside (oh, come one, hookahs don’t count!)
December 9th, 2008 at 2:56 pmThe Hookah shop downtown started using these quite recently. Everyone who tried a puff that first night was AMAZED at the smoothness! No flavor is lost. The only thing that you will miss is the loud hubbly-bubbly sound, which is not such a big deal. But again the smoothness is increased five fold. This technology, that at first seems like a gimmick, I can assure you is not. Simple, efficient, and quite effective. If you are new to the scene and ordering for the first time, do yourself a service and add it to you’re cart, you won’t regret it!
December 13th, 2008 at 10:13 am