How many times have you seen somebody take enormous hits out of a hookah, only to wonder: "Why can't my hookah do that?"  There are many things that need to get perfected in order to get a hookah to smoke the way you'd like it to (THICK AND POWERFUL!).  I will be going over how to pack a bowl, making the best hole punching pattern, most effective charcoal configuration, acclimating your Hookah Molasses, and much more.  All of these tips are provided to you from personal experience.

Acclimating the Shisha

"Acclimating the shisha" basically means giving the molasses some time to get used to its environment.  We do this because the tobacco forms equilibrium with the moisture in the air.  When it is out of balance the juice becomes too runny or the excess moisture in the air dissolves all the flavors wrong.  If you acclimate your tobacco, it allows the tobacco to reach equilibrium with the air, making the smoke thicker and more flavorful.  This is most especially important with nicotinated tobaccos, but flavor changes can be found in non-nicotine tobaccos too.  It is best to let the tobacco sit open in the environment you are going to be smoking it in for at least 3 hours.  Some pros will let the shisha sit for a whole day before they smoke it.

Packing the Bowl with Molasses:

After your molasses has been acclimated, you will be ready to start packing the bowl with your accliminated molasses! First make sure your bowl is clean.  Take a slightly damp paper towl and clean the inside of the bowl of any old residue.  After the bowl has been cleaned, take the molasses and steadily sprinkle it into the bowl.  For the most part, you want to pack it nice and even.  Remove any sticks or stems that you might find in the molasses as well because they act as "place fillers" in the bowl and do not taste particularly well.  Pack the bowl a little bit above the top.  Make sure you didn't pack the bowl too tightly, because that could paralyze airflow, making it hard to suck, and letting little smoke come out.  After the bowl has been filled with the right amount of molasses, take a piece of foil which on average should be 5"x5" (size really depends on the size of bowl you are using, but thats the standard size), and place it on top of the molasses and make a nice tight seal with the foil around the stem of the bowl.  So right now your bowl head should be covered with a piece of foil that has no holes in it.  Next it's time to make the hole pattern.

 
Best Hole Pattern

This is an extremely important concept that many people disregard when setting up their hookah.  A lot of times, making a poor hole configuration on your bowl could lead to a lack of taste, or a charcoal-like taste when you are smoking.  What we want to do, is make a pattern that will let us enjoy our molasses and not gag from it.  It is very important you find something thin to poke the holes through.  I like to use a safety pin, but if I can't find one, I'll use an unwrapped metal paper clip.  Anything that is thin, pointy, and at least 1.5" long will do.  Start by punching thin holes along the outside of the bowl.  When you push in, make sure you push in as far as you can even through the molasses so that you will have healthy airflow in the bowl.  When you're done with the outside holes, move in a bit and start another circular pattern.  Do the same until your bowl looks similar to the one below, with the biggest hole being in the center.  The key is to have a lot of small holes, instead of having larger holes.  Larger holes will burn the molasses too quickly, and will cause your bowl to get "kicked" quicker. 

 
When you're done packing the bowl and punching in the holes, blow softly from the bottom of the bowl just to make sure you have a nice air passage in your bowl.  Packing the bowl is only part of the challenge, the next is knowing how to manage your charcoal. 

 
Charcoal Management: 

Lack of proper charcoal management is the main reason why a hookah will not taste right.  What we want to do is get enough heat to "toast" the molasses but not go overboard with it so that it burns the molasses too quick without getting any flavor out of it.  There are two different kinds of charcoal that people use.  One kind of charcoal that people use are Quick Lights (starlight, three kings, three queens).  Quick Lights are simply, easy lighting charcoal.  Most of them start right up within seconds of being in contact with a flame.  The other kind of charcoal that people use is natural wooden coals.  Natural Coal is different then Quick Lights in that you have to place them in a pre-existing fire to get them to start up.  For example, I get my natural coals lit by making a mini camp fire outside with sticks and some lighter fluid.  Then putting the Natural Coals in the fire for a few minutes until they get lit.  It isn't recommended to use Natural Coals indoors for obvious reasons.  Below is a comparison between Natural Coals and quick lights.
 

Natural Coals

Advantages
- Cleaner, you get a more natural taste from the bowl
- Cheaper
- Lasts longer then Quick Lights
- Get hotter then Quick Lights (Heat management is a MUST with natural coals, unless you enjoy changing bowls every 20 minutes)

Disadvantages
- Harder to get lit then Quick Lights
- Carry a black dust which makes natural coals messier then Quick Lights
- Not recommended for indoors

Recommended Use
The best time to use Natural Coals is when you are outdoors and plan on smoking a bunch of bowls.  Or if you are having a hookah party with many hookahs, then Natural Coals would be extremely convenient to have.

Quick Lights

Advantages
- Convenient and easy to light up
- They are all the same size, so heat variations are not a problem.
- Easy to use indoors

Disadvantages
- Some no-name brand of Quick Lights contain excess amounts of lighter fluid and the fumes alter the taste of the molasses.
- More expensive then Natural Coals
- Die out quicker then Natural Coals

Recommended Use
The best time to use Quick Lights is when you plan on relaxing and smoking a bowl or two....or three......When you are too lazy, or not motivated enough to go through the effort of lighting up Natural Coals.

 
If you are going to use the Quick Lights, place a lit coal on the outside of the bowl first.  Wait 2 minutes and then add another coal on another outer area of the bowl.  Usually two charcoals will do the job, but some people like going overboard with the smoke and add a third charcoal 25 minutes into the smoking session when the first two begin to die down.  It is not recommended to put a third charcoal on that soon, but if you are an experienced hookah smoker, and you know how to manage your charcoals, then you could pull it off and get quite a nice smoke from it.  The other thing you need to worry about is heat management.  About every five minutes, you should move the charcoal to a new place on the bowl on the outsides, and eventually moving them closer and closer to the inside.  If the charcoal is placed on the same region of the bowl for too long, it will just burn the tobacco to the point it turns crispy and hard; ruining the flavor of the whole bowl.  What we want to do is savor and use our molasses to it's fullest potential, and waste as little of it as possible.  Heat management, and moving the coals every 5-10 minutes is a crucial technique that most people neglect when smoking hookah. 
 
By doing everything I have suggested, your hookah experience should be optimized to be the best it could possibly be! 

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