Mod upgrades... Tank upgrades... Flavor stash upgrades?

I’ll probably take some flack for this post, but I’m just curious why so many vapers still mix mostly with the old flavor companies.

Vaping has evolved in leaps and bounds.

There are some vapers that like to stay on the cutting edge when it comes to vape gear. I’ve noticed lately that flavor concentrates are evolving now… almost as fast as vape gear.

Vendors are now on the site asking us “what do you want”? Not many are saying “HIGHLY CONCENTRATED FLAVORS”.

I vowed somewhere after my 300th bad recipe to only mix with the best flavors I could afford and most of these are highly concentrated flavors. 20% total flavors is old news IMO. Good flavor concentrates has evolved to 5-12% total flavor range.

I may have 2 or 3 recipes in my whole recipe stash that’s mostly TPA, Cap or FW. IMO these are old news. Even when I mix popular recipes that’s mostly TPA, Cap or FW… They always seem to be lacking something. I don’t get this feeling no where near as often when mixing premium concentrates.

I wonder if I’ve lost my taste for the standard concentrates or are the premium flavors just that much better. Any thoughts… good or bad… don’t hold back.

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I personally find it very hard to mix using just multiple flavours of Highly Concentrated Flavours like FA Flavorah or Inawera. They are great as standalones or different ones used once or twice max in a multiple flavour recipe.

I think the likes of TPA or Capella are far easier to mix with in recipes and the majority of time give a much better finished flavour in multi concentrate mixes for my tastes even if the %'s are higher and I still use these brands more than the Highly Concentrated Flavours at the moment

The one highly concentrated flavour I can work with is Medicine Flower. I find they mix well together at low %'s the flavour profile you aim for whether it ends up good or bad, is there in the finished flavour every time. Unfortunately due to no creams in the range yet you are a bit limited in what you can do and ultimately I end up adding Flavorah or TPA/Cap creams to the mix :disappointed:

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That was the problem I had, but only in reverse. It was much easier for me to use .5-3% than 5-15% mixers. I was never able to master the high % flavors.

What are “premium” flavourings? Just more concentrated?

I do wonder at times when browsing recipes, why some are 9-10% flavour, my first instinct is “too weak!” - I’m a 20% man :smiley:

but, then you look closer, and a lot of those flavourings used are high concentration, and 20% would murder your taste buds :smiley:

I’m happy enough for now with TFA/Cap/FA but have been looking more into Inawera and others that are apparently much stronger.

Once the end result tastes great, doesn’t really matter to me the % used though.

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FA. INW, FLV, MF and now Real Flavors will be testing a premium line. These are usually 5% or less single flavor %. VG base and low % flavors usually work better for vapers with pg allergies or those that like high vg mixes.

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AH, gotchya! VG flavourings would interest me. I don’t deal in PG outside of what’s in the concentrates mostly. I do have PG nic also though but prefer VG nic. My mixes usually end up in around 80/20, where I like to be. But I’d be all for using less for more flavour

I haven’t used Real Flavors yet, but the other premium flavors I’ve used has more consistency of good flavors across the entire flavor line.

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The problem I have is I love desert vapes, it is far easier to find great premium flavors when dealing with fruits or floras.I have yet to find anything premium to take the place of Vanilla Custard (CAP) , Cinnamon Danish Swirl (Cap) , Sugar Cookie(CAP) , Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (TPA). and on and on.IMO Capella’s Vanilla Custard V1 is as premium as it gets!:yum:
I do love the majority of Flavorah ,their custard meh.I will admit (FA) Nonna’s Cake is superb but the custard ,no thanks.I did place an order with Real Flavors and I hope it will be wonderful!
I did find a new ADV for me that for the first time doesn’t have the main notes from Cap or TPA so we are getting there!
Italian Cream Cake : http://e-liquid-recipes.com/recipe/559615/Italian+Cream+Cake

2% Italian Cream (Hangsen)
3% Nonna’s Cake (FA)
3% vanilla overload (GRM)

Flavor total: 8%
Remember to rate it at: http://tjek.nu/r/4rPf

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It would be awesome if we could have a sort function on the popularity of “single flavor” flavors.

It was kind of an expensive nightmare caused by spending money on Capella, FA and TPA flavors to get the feel for what worked… I honestly feel like I went to trade school or something at this point to lean how to do it. I stick with these old favorites because I just cant afford to start goofing around with some of these new companies flavors only to throw them in the “probably wont ever use this again” drawer.

ECX is selling those “recipe kits with 4 flavors” when these companies actually should be working on compound recipes in single bottles that can be used on their own. I think they are trying to get us to do all their work for them honestly.

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Ha, over here in Chinaland you’re lucky if you can find Capella or Flavor West… they’re only dealing in TFA and call that high end. -.- who told me moving here was a good idea again?

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I’m sorry… but I live over here and pay a lot of taxes lol… very frustrating.

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I hope it never becomes a thing that there’s this kind of divide in DIY communities, y’know, the poorer mixers and then the elite

One group using all the usuals, and the posh ones doing 2.96% total, bare whiff of magical organic filtered through streams in the Alps type concentrates. Haha :smiley:

Nowt wrong with TFA either, some of their concentrates are very tasty. You just need to use a fair amount mostly.

I’ve only had 2 bummers to date, their blackcurrant and their hazelnut, just don’t think much on those. And their custard is pretty much just a vanilla cream

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lol…I’ve got a good $600.00 in this “hobby” just this year. (Part of that was switching to sub ohm) I’m still ahead financially from the icky sticks but learning how to get my own flavor profile… there was a lot of time involved in it too. I just wish the people who sell the flavors would post a little better guidelines. ECX is better because they have a popularity sort function. Wizard labs doesn’t want the site to have a sort function so I used ECX’s site to find out what most people buy and then bough a lot of stuff from Wizard. (Especially when ECX was out of things which is frequently)

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Yeah I’ve invested a fair bit already, but starting to see the benefits. I haven’t bought a pre-made juice in a few months now, and have enough to keep me going for a few more, with the makings of about a year’s worth once my latest orders arrive. I keep it basic enough, I love doing this, and love the satisfaction of others praising my mixes :slight_smile: It’s all about that flavour for me, it’s #1, I’m not bothered with ‘clouds brah!’ or anything really fancy hardware-wise. It’s all about that flavour, however we achieve it.

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That was my very first thought when I read Provape’s post. I’m sure he didn’t mean it to sound like that though.

I’m with you in I think there are some great flavorings from each of the mfg companies and I’ve invested way too much into some of these ‘low-end’ flavorings to just chuck 'em anyhow.

I am very excited to try the new flavorings from these highly concentrated makers though. I love most of the FLV and the two MF flavorings I’ve tried. I’d like to try more of the MF, but it’s hard to wrap my head around spending my budgeted $25 on two new 5ml flavors to TRY, when I can get 4 or 5 new 10ml FA or CAP or Hangsen flavorings.

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I don’t know if this suffices, but when I would search for a flavor, I would type the flavor, then select ‘recipes’, to put the flavors most used in recipes to the top, this would indicate popularity, and overall what brands of a flavor are used most… this still may not answer for which kind tastes how you want… but, if you type in a flavor and see 6000 recipes contain it, and the next highest is drastically lower use, it seems a safe bet, that the top flavor is probably also the best resulting, in general.

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Thank you for suggesting I do that and I actually do already use that method and it does help!

I also use ECX’s sort function by number of reviews to filter to find 4 star flavors… I guess what I’m looking for would be a data base sort function where in the notes people said “preferred single flavor” dumped into a data set (using that term but it’s just a list)… and then filtered again by putting those flavors at the top of the list by number of recipes it’s used in.

Example If Strawberry FA is in 6000 recipes, it would go to the top of the list.

If Vanilla Custard is used in 5888 recipes, it would be number 2 in the list and then so on…

Not sure it would be worth doing but it would tell quite a story. people get so confused when they start out I think it would help.

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I think we shouldn’t even call companies like FA/inw/mf premium. Just like with b’n’m shops called by their juices premium.

I call it choices. I picked FA as my primary flavor company because at the time it seemed they had a lot more flavors without diactyle and such. I also liked higher concentrate levels.

Personally I think cap could make higher concentrates…and feel it’s just that they are watered down with more of in their bottles…but I am blowing smoke on that. However I would bet if they mixed their concentrates at a higher concentration level it would then come with a label of “premium” and also a higher cost.

I also feel people stay away from the higher concentrates because they are easier to screw up if your not 100% accurate. you also see a lot of folks in their “first time DIY” experiance with FA saying that they are struggling more often imo as compared to cap first time users. Then…

Once a person gets hooked on cap they don’t want to stray or when they do fall flat. Especially When trying to apply sloppy mixing skills over to FA or INW or others.

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I use to shop for flavors by volume. I wanted as much as I could get for cheap. I’ve come realize there is a eliquid output per mil that really balance the cost or in some cases make premium flavors cheaper to use.

I also think there is an individual preference why a person use what they do. Premium flavors just work better for my finicky taste buds. They seem to be truer and more flavorful.

I use a lot of Capella because I like how it tastes, I use a lot of FA as well. I don’t disagree Capella is somewhat watered down but that property in the Capella flavoring (to me) also makes it so you can vape it faster. I think part of why you can vape it faster is because you are using more volume of flavor in the mix but that’s just my opinion.

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