I’m not sure what the best way to go about this would be, since taste is so subjective and it is usually pretty rare that anyone would have all the vendors that make a certain flavor.
So, what I did was go through the list @NewDrip posted on ELR’s Flavor List (sans a few I felt were redundant or didn’t have much or any info). I searched for the flavor, sorted by number of recipes, and recorded which flavor had the most number of recipes for popularity, and the highest star rating for highest rated. I disregarded any flavors that didn’t have a vendor or that weren’t inputted correctly. This is far from a “definitive” resource, but it’s a start I suppose.
I apologize that I can’t answer that. I always include them in a mix. The Cheesecake I have used anywhere from 2-4%, but the Creamy Caramel is a little different. I have never really narrowed it down because depending on what I’m mixing it with I usually find it either dominates the mix or is nearly imperceptible. Finding the right percentage may be a challenge. For example, I have one I made called Whiskey On My Breath and I remember bumping it up a little at a time and stopping at 3% because as I mentioned it can dominate and my tests to that point had made the caramel just obvious without overpowering. I haven’t made any of this lately but I think I’ll try again soon and continue bumping up the creamy caramel to see how it acts
I was really hoping to get more participation from the community and then use the most popular. I do like this list you have made. I’m almost certain that TPA will probably lead in popularity because it’s what most people use even if it isn’t the best. I’m gonna print this list and go thru what you have gathered and maybe we come up with something.
Unfortunately most of the community is not gonna have a chance to try all flavors from all brands. There is our problem. Not everyone is made of money as you and I are drip (YEAH, RIGHT). Honest truth I disagree with numerous calls on flavor in the list and one of the reasons for that is many flavors I use I do not see others use. For instance FW Blackberry (Natural). Excellent Blackberry. FW Raspberry (Natural), again, great. I never see these flavors being used. They are fairly new, granted, but they cost more as well and many have a thing about FW (Shame on them). MBV might help a bit with the ratings of flavors since they seem to carry only what they seem to deem the best flavors from all the main players in flavor. I use their buyers ratings to judge considered flavors to buy. As is our users of ELR opinions, MBV doesn’t have every flavor listed for sale and of course Rated. I guess what I’m trying to say here is the task which you are trying to accomplish here is a very difficult task. It will take many avenues of research, not just one, to accomplish this feat. I Commend you and @JoJos work on this and hope that you can come up with a winner…PS, add Yogurt
I agree, but this is probably the closest we are going to get. I’m sure everyone has their own favorites. I know Daath loves FA, Ringling (as he said) uses a lot of FW.
Honestly, I was kind of surprised at some of the things I found. I was fully expecting TPA to take the cake on EVERY flavor for relative popularity. And I was expecting a lot of FA’s flavors to be the highest rated. A huge problem with this list and “system” is that the ratings aren’t necessarily correlated with number of recipes. A flavor could have 1500 recipes but only three people actually rated it. If those three people loved it or are inexperienced with other vendors, it can get 5 stars even if it is an awful flavor. Or the other way around. So, like I said…definitely NOT definitive. I have based some of my purchase decisions on looking up the flavors in ELRs list. Worst case scenario, I’ll find out what I do and don’t like.
I currently have three different coconuts that I’m trying. I’ll give my 2c when I decide which is my favorite. I will have 5 creams, 2 blueberries, 2 butterscotches, 2 Jamaican rums, 2 vanilla custard (both cap), 2 watermelons, and 2 strawberries that I’ll be using over the next several weeks/months and I can weigh in on what I think are the best of what I have. I will say of the coffees I’ve tried, TPA coffee and cappuccino, my own extraction, and FA dark bean, FA is by far the best. So there’s that. LOL
I’ll add Yogurt.
EDIT: I’ll not add yogurt (or yoghurt) because there’s hardly any info on ELR for either.
I’m taking any info possible, If you have any resources of top flavors buy vendors then link it please. I just don’t want to buy another inferior flavor to let sit unused because I hate it. Maybe I should change this to flavors to avoid.
I think I may go this route since this is such a tough feat to tackle.
The only other thing I can think of is to sucker @daath into making a whole category just for flavor ratings, make a post for each flavor type, and hope that people reply with their favorite vendors. Then, tally up all the vendor votes and make a list of those. Unless there’s some way to do polls on here.
I think flavors to avoid would probably be a lot easier to manage. I can always tell when I hate a flavor, but it’s a lot tougher to nail down a favorite when I haven’t tried them all.
EDIT: Did I say sucker? I meant to say sweet talk…
Drip, I couldn’t agree with you more, I have at least a dozen tobaccos from FW and TFA I can pretty much say I will never use, other than drain cleaner that is. Feel like I wasted money on 4 different cherry flavors. I’ve had pretty fair luck otherwise because I have learned to look closely at ratings. If there is any question I don’t buy. Still though, it’s still gonna happen. Perhaps this is yet another reason to buy some glasses with the little wipers to get the fog out of my eyes…lol
There is a way a way to do polls here and honestly it came to mind for me too. I thought of each flavor being polled for best with each major vendor as choices, however, then I thought of the amount of flavors and my bubble popped…Oh well…
Hopefully, with a group effort we can steer clear of the bad stuff and compile a list of highly recommended flavors and vendors to avoid wasting money. I’ve already picked up a few to replace some of this bad stuff I got. I was so gung ho in the beginning that I was ordering any and everything… now I’ve learned to be real picky and order flavors that’s been highly recommended. Now my mixes are tasting a lot better.
Not that most of us haven’t learned to get away from this but my guess is if we took the time to ask right here on ELR when in question, we would have nothing but good luck buying…
Sometimes I do the same just out sheer despiration of finding a flavoring that actually tastes like whatever the heck it’s supposed to taste like! Take coconut for example…still looking for a coconut that actually tastes like coconut and not coconut infused with plastic. Jeez-O-Pete.
Ok guys, gals, how about this? We have 6 major flavor vendors. Flavor West, Flavor Art, TFA, Hangsen, Capella, and Inawera. Sorry guys, being Loranne flavors are mostly unsuitable for vaping I do not consider them a major player. We start 6 new threads, one for each flavor company.
Flavors you would recommend from Flavor West
Flavors you would recommend from Capella
Flavors you would recommend from Inawera
Flavors you would recommend from Hangsen
Flavors you would recommend from Flavor Art
Flavors you would recommend from The Flavor Apprentice
Within our thread we can ask…
Please tell us what flavors you would recommend your fellow ELR users to purchase from _______ Company. Please only include flavors you would purchase continually keep stocked personally and would recommend to others…
Something like that, what do you think? Think it might work?
That really looks good. We need to some how combine it with the flavors to avoid also. We need to get some exposure and somehow urge participation. As in the “top flavors by vendors” post there wasn’t much interest besides us regulars. Maybe we can get @daath to pin this topic for a certain amount of time. Also we should come up with a nice lead in that will make people want to participate.
I think that the flavor ratings are an excellent idea…I’ll also “add” that we would benefit in having a “strength” rating within this…
Such as…Capella is slightly better custard w more prominent egg flavor…but the tpa/LA are more highly concentrated…
Perhaps we could upgrade a calculator…or at least offer a “concentration” scale in that you seek to substitute one brand for another and based upon percentages these values might certainly change…ie 6% of TPA might be 8% of Capella…
There is a new flavor review section that should cover that info. Also if you click any flavor in a recipe it will take you to a note section that has percentages in there for you.
Ok guys, gals, put on those thinking caps. I need to replace my current watermelon flavor but nothing seems to compare. The watermelon flavor I had was from vapor shots who changed to flavor envy and changed again now to Nicotine Labs. The original Vapor Shots watermelon did indeed taste just like natural watermelon. No candy taste but sweet as eating watermelon. Anyone know something that compares?
Subjectivity can be partially removed by adding a weighted behavioural index to your assessment of a flavour.
It could also identify essential but not exiting base flavours.
1 point - reordered 10ml
3 points - reordered 30-50ml
4 points - reordered 100ml+
3 points - Always on my shelf (only valid if it has been reordered)
3 points - This is now the only version of this flavour I use (only valid if others have been tried)
1-10 points - Your subjective score
I am away for a couple of weeks and will give this some thought on the beach.
