Hitoki Trident | the Laser Hookah!

Greetings, potheads! Today we have a special review for an innovative device which just might change the game for herbal cannabis consumption. I’m talking about the Hitoki Trident, a laser-powered combustion device for dry herb. This is not a vaporizer, nor is it a traditional pipe. This is a laser combustion device, the first of its kind.

While the $499 price is formidable, after trying it, I’m actually pretty sold.

Pros

• Laser!
• Relatively easy to use
• Smooth, clean combustion
• Efficient burning
• Potent effects
• Perfect taste
• Looks badass
• Great design with safety mechanisms

Cons

• Not exactly a budget rig
• The hose is flimsy and prone to kinking

Recommendation: Replace the hose. The rest of the unit is a solid, quality build, and then you have this wimpy hose with the constitution of a wet noodle attached to it. If you’re going this far, go all the way and add in a quality, classic hookah hose.

The Hitoki Trident is Ground-Breaking

Off the top of my head, I think the Hitoki Trident is the most expensive single rig we’ve ever reviewed. With that said, it is also a brand new way to consume cannabis, one which we just might change the way you consume cannabis.

The Hitoki Trident uses a laser chamber to burn dry herb. You might be tempted to think this is some gimmick – I certainly was when I first heard of it. But the Trident really has something new to offer.

> In regular combustion smoking out of a bong, you’re smoking with a lighter, inhaling some petrochemicals, and getting a lot of carbon with your inhale. You preserve the full taste of the herb, but you’re also burning cannabinoids which your body isn’t absorbing very efficiently. The last hit is mostly ash and tar.

> In vaping dry herb, you are vaporizing it so you skip the carbon you would get with smoke, and you’re getting a more efficient hit out of your cannabinoids. But you have noticed, you change the flavor of herb drastically, because the terpenes are getting nuked at these high temperatures. The last few hits leave a burnt-popcorn flavor.

Laser combustion is different from both fire combustion and vaping. The laser gives you a clean hit without carbon and full spectrum effects from the cannabinoids, while preserving every nuance of flavor from the terpenes. It’s the best of both worlds. Afterwards, you go to dump out the bowl and the unit is cool to the touch, while having perfectly burned ash inside.

It’s easier to clean than either a bong or a vape. Vapes tend to leave an oily residue inside the chamber and take on a fried-chicken smell with repeated use. Bongs, as we’re all familiar with by now, tend to have carbon and resin build-up on the bowl and need lots of cleaning. The Hitoki Trident’s modestly-sized chamber does neither of these. The weed is simply laser-incinerated into ash. Just dump it out and give it a wipe, you’re good to reload.

In my experience so far, I get thick, cloudy pulls off the Trident and the last hit tastes just as good as the first. It just feels like it’s on an entirely different level!

The Hitoki Trident From Unboxing to First Hit

The Hitoki Trident kit contains:

• the Trident unit
• an attachable hookah hose with mouthpiece
• a USB charger
• a USB-plug-in adapter
• a picking / packing tool

And you get it ready like this:

• Charge the unit – it takes up to 2 hours (mine took ~45 minutes)
• Unthread the bottom clear cup and run about a centimeter of water in it, then reattach it
• Connect the hookah hose
• Unthread the top laser unit from the herb cup section
• Loosely pack herb into the cup and replace the top laser unit
• 5x clicks to turn on
• 3x clicks to cycle through 3 temperatures
• hold the button to start the show
• alternately, 2x clicks will fire the laser off without holding it, for 9 seconds

The temperature settings – I guess you would properly call them “laser intensity settings” – run red (lowest), green (middle), blue (highest).

I also see from the manual that you can indeed take an ordinary cotton swab with alcohol and clean the laser lens itself. As for the herb chamber, it’s likewise cleaned by a simple swab. The water cup, sensibly threaded on the bottom, is easy to dump out, clean, and refill. They recommend cleaning after every 3 sessions. At $499, I imagine you’d want to take good care of this unit!

This helpful video shows a tutorial on how to use the Trident.

I Must Nitpick About the Hose

The hose is usable as long as you keep it positioned right. But it is very flimsy and tends to kink up if you aren’t careful. It’s really awkward, because you have to keep the unit in arm’s length to use it and yet the hose wants you to stand three feet back. I was constantly fighting with the hose. Good, quality hookah hoses are out there that are built so they coil smoothly instead of kinking, at prices from $20-60.

This is still a minor nitpick, and Hitoki does sell accessories for the Trident, including an alternate mouthpiece. The rest of the unit is a rock-solid, top-quality build, which makes the hose pathetic by comparison. It didn’t quite spoil the experience, but it seems a silly point to cheap out when the rest of the unit is so luxurious.

This is a tabletop rig all the way, though, so the hose isn’t a deal-breaker. It’s just a minor annoyance.

Now You’re Smoking With Laser Power!

The designers at Hitoki prudently built in this window where you can see the laser in action, and also see the smoke rising from the herb in the laser chamber. This is functional, because you can tell that way when your bowl is dusted, by seeing that it’s not smoking anymore.

In addition, the laser action is just the most awesome and cool feature I’ve ever seen on a cannabis consumption rig. It looks like a prop in a sci-fi flick. Also, the laser burns the weed very efficiently with the minimal residue, compared to vaping or fire-combustion. The problem with fire-combustion is that the weed is still burning even when you’re not hitting it. With the Trident, the weed quickly extinguishes as soon as you take the laser off.

The Hitoki site says that you can get 280+ ignitions per charge, which is pretty good since a charge only takes a couple hours. They also mention that the herb chamber can hold between 0.2-0.5 grams, but I’d probably stop at around 0.35 grams so as not to pack it too tight. Even at that, I’m getting about ten huge cloudy hits, way more than I would get out of blazing a bong bowl.

I Recommend the Hitoki Trident For Delivering a Great, Innovative Experience

It isn’t every day that you can try something this new in the world of weed. I’m tempted to toss out my pipes and stick with the Trident, it is that much of an improvement over regular combustion bongs. My only nitpick is that silly, flimsy hose. Outside of that, the Hitoki Trident is a triumph of practical design combined with cutting-edge technology.

The only qualifications I’d make to my recommend is, duh, the price. Make no mistake, the Trident is an enjoyable experience and $499 isn’t that outrageous for this cutting-edge technology and solid build. But even the most elaborate rigs I’ve seen out there are still less expensive. So while I can see where the Trident could be worth nearly every penny, I also see where many of you will settle for a simple pipe or vape and be done with it. Perhaps, now that laser hookahs are on the table, more companies will develop this technology into more compact, inexpensive builds.

That’s fine! You can stick with your glass bong. Your caked, stained, low-tech bong with the smoky, carbonized hits. Gosh, I hope the Trident doesn’t turn me into a snob!

Find the Hitoki Trident here. Readers, you have the floor in the comments or in our forum.