I wanted to share why I chose to develop a high performing clay body for our bowls and why we chose not to go with other materials such as Glass or Aluminum. I felt this information would be useful to some of you who are also deciding on what bowls to spend your hard earned money!
If it's not broken you may not need to fix it.
In an attempt to innovate new materials and designs are introduced into this age old hobby but are these always for the better? I have attached am image here that shows why Clay has stood the test of time for clay being the best material to cook Shisha. This chart illustrates two categories, Heat Capacity and Thermal Conductivity.
The formula stated under Heat capacity shows how many units are necessary to raise the heat of a device by one degree. You want this number to be higher which in the case of clay it's the highest of all materials listed here, glass and aluminum included. This means that it takes more effort to heat the material up which when cooking Shisha is a good thing as you don't want it heat up too fast and shock and burn the tobacco leaving little room for error, clay is the superior material for bringing shisha to a slow and steady temperature. Now moving on to the thermal conductivity category, you want this number to be lower, which again in the case of clay it is the lowest! Low thermal conductivity means that heat is escaping the material at a slow pace. Again ideal for Shisha, you want the bowl to retain its heat and temperature, so you are not always finding yourself adding more charcoal to keep the heat up, which in turn opens you up to temperature fluctuations, and shocking and scorching your tobacco.
We chose clay for its slow and steady heat retaining characteristics and we hope that when you are searching for your next bowl this information would be helpful in making a decision. I felt that since I had this information from my research that I should share it and that many of you may find it interesting.
OI hope that you don't just write clay off as an age old technology that's losing its luster. It's only downside is it's durability and I'm working on a fix for that :)
Thanks for reading!