Carnival of the Coals: Three Kings Hookah Charcoal
A review of Three Kings Insta-Light Hookah Coal.
Charcoal is a big deal for the hookah smoker. A good brick of coal is worth its weight in gold, and a shit piece will waste your time and tobacco. Three Kings comes in on the former end of the spectrum, and is our most often go-to hookah charcoal.
Three Kings is a product from the Netherlands made initially for fondue pots and the sort, but were rebranded with the growing hookah culture in Europe. The coals were made to be easy lighting, odorless, and pure, and they hit the mark, right on.
Three Kings is one of the easiest to light charcoals out there. Some other insta-lights are better started on a stove top, and are hard to light with a regular 99-cent Bic lighter. Some will even start to start but fizzle out before the full coal is ignited. Not Three Kings. These puppies take one whiff of a Bic flame and start right up, very quickly. Nice.
Starting up is fine, even shit Roland Coals start up quick, but what about the taste? Again, Three Kings scores big here. They are odorless, or as odorless as insta-light charcoal can get. Cheaper coals use filler with their coal, making it burn cooler and adding various taste notes to the hookah smoke, Three Kings is a near 100% charcoal briquette. You can tell by how fine the ash is: Typically with Three Kings there will be almost no ash on top of the head once the coal is done, this means the material in the briquette is pure coal. Coal will burn, fillers wont.
Another nice, additional feature that we really like about Three Kings is the wrapper. Its a thick, foil sheath. We have actually used this wrapper as a screen for our bowl when we have run out of aluminum foil. Its not a huge selling point, but great in a pinch. Other hookah coal brands with a foil wrapper, do not work as well as Three Kings for some reason probably related to the quality of the material.
There are lots of insta-light charcoal brands out there, and some hit and some miss. Three Kings is the gold standard by which all other insta-light hookah coals are compared. While they are still insta-lights, and wont taste as pure as actual 100% unprocessed charcoal, they are as good as it gets in a very convenient easy to use package.
Hookah Coal Review: Three Kings Hookah Charcoal
Producing Country: Netherlands
Type: Insta-Light
Size: 33mm and 40mm varieties
Price: $10-15 per 100 coals
Duration: About 30-40min (for 33mm)
Overall: 8/10
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