Hey all! So, I wrote up an article on something I've been tinkering with a bit for the last few weeks. I'll link a google docs page with the article that's a lot easier to read than the limited edition options on reddit allow, but I'll also paste it below.

Link to article

When it comes to understanding flavors and knowing how to pair them, sometimes it is better to think like a chef than a mixer.

I’m sure a lot of you reading this have read Karen Page and Aaron Dornenburg’s excellent culinary textbook “The Flavor Bible,” or at the very least have heard it mentioned throughout the DIY community.

It has a wealth of knowledge on the subject of flavor pairings and quotes from various world famous chefs on how to best use certain ingredients in a recipe. The issue with the book when looking at it for vaping purposes is that in my eyes it offers a ton of great flavor pairings, but doesn’t troubleshoot recipes that are almost perfect, but need just a little something else to make them just right.

But, after six years as a chef, I learned that unfortunately there is no one note is going to solve everything…and when we stop thinking that there is some skeleton key flavor that is going to unlock each mix's true potential, we start to learn more about the flavors themselves.

Now, that sounds all well and good, but that’s not really helping you yet, is it reader? I didn’t think so. Well, the reason I want to focus on chefs and their search for just the right flavor is because I want to go way back in time and have you remember kindergarten. That’s when you learned all about the four “parts” of the tongue that detect the sensations of sweet, salty, sour, and bitter.

Rather recently, a “fifth taste” has been discussed ad nauseam culinary circles called “umami.” Umami is, in a super distilled definition, the flavor profile of “meaty,” almost savory foods like mushrooms, beef, and soy. You may also be familiar with monosodium glutamate, or MSG for short, which is a magical powder that makes everything taste better. Umami is also present in breastmilk, which is usually every child’s first encounter with this fifth taste.

So, can we employ umami to help with DIY e-liquid creating? Yes! However, it’s a lot less straightforward than just dumping some MSG into some PG and microwaving it, or asking the nearest female to lactate for you (seriously, don’t do that). Instead, we have to survey DIY flavors that might possess some umami characteristics. Please note that this is largely a theory I’ve been crafting, rather than something that’s been tested and proven (though I have been testing it extensively). If you find the following interesting, please tinker around with it and let me know what you’ve discovered.

The best example of a flavor we definitely have available is tea. Tea flavors aren’t all that common in vaping it seems, but I feel this is mostly because these flavors very rarely make for a good standalone vape, nor are they a particularly good base for building a more complex recipe (think raspberry and lemon tea). However, if we use tea notes in very small quantities, they have the potential to turn fruit mixes and even bakery mixes into something a little more interesting.

For this particular strategy, I suggest looking into green tea flavorings rather than black tea, as it’s a more subtle flavor, but if you opt for black tea, you may want to either really limit the percentage you use it at, or make sure it is going into something with more aggressive flavors like cinnamon, clove, or citruses. Now, when I say you want to use a little, I mean only a few drops per 15mL, or roughly 0.2-0.5% flavoring from companies like FA or INW. Adding just a little amount of green tea or black tea flavoring might act like a powered down version of MSG and give a potential flavor boost to your juice.

Now, I don’t recommend using green tea or black tea flavors in every single mix you make, just the ones that seem to lacking a little depth or just don’t seem quite right. This is mostly a theory than something proven, so don’t go dumping tea flavors into stuff where what I mentioned above would make sense. Use your best judgement.

Another subject that chefs love discussing is acidity, and how to best use it in a recipe. I’m sure a lot of you squeeze some lemon over your plate of fish and chips, but do you know why you do that? In short, it’s because citrus has the tendency to mellow the fatty aspects of rich flavors and accentuate their flavor better.

We do this with food all the time, often without even thinking about it…but I can’t say the same for e-liquid recipes. Have you ever noticed that lemon cream style vapes tend to have a very specific tastes to the cream/custard that isn’t present in other fruit based custards? If you have, then you are already ahead of the game.

The reason for this is because the egginess of custards and the creaminess of vanillas, creams, and other dairy flavors reacts very specifically when acid is introduced. Instead of being a base note that provides some body, they become more of a flavor accent. It’s hard to put into words the difference, so you may just have to try this for yourself:

Try mixing up a 5% mix of Flavorah Vanilla Custard or a 5% mix of CAP Vanilla Custard (v1 or v2) as a standalone flavor and let it sit for a few days. At the same time, mix up that same single flavor recipe but add in 0.5-1% of your favorite citrus flavoring (I recommend Flavorah Lime, Flavorah Lemonade, FA Lemon Sicily, or FA Tahitian Lime Cold Pressed). Let that sit for the same amount of time, and then vape them side by side. I’m willing to bet you will understand the difference a bit better. Don’t focus on the additional flavor of the citrus if any is present, instead focus your attention on the custard notes.

Another good use for acidity is to add a little bite to fruit based mixes. This, unlike what I mentioned above with custards/creams, is a lot more common in e-liquids, but it is often used as something to counteract sweetness.

While that is a perfectly good reason to use acid in fruit vapes, you should also consider adding a little into most of your fruit vapes solely for the purpose of boosting their flavor, much like you might do with dragon fruit for apple and pear vapes. Acids tend to wake up the olfactory senses and thus contribute to tasting other flavors a little more crisply and clearly.

Again, I’d recommend using very little, more like 0.5-2% of your favorite citrus flavor, since you don’t really want to taste much of the actual flavor of lemon, lime, orange, etc.

Flavor notes are a complicated thing to understand, and I’ve only just scratched the surface of understanding the above concepts. I could probably dedicated years to understanding just a few notes and still feel like a novice, so don’t worry if these don’t work specifically for you. Every person is different, and every palette is different.

What do you all think? Am I way off base here? So far what I've tested has been largely successful (with a few exceptions of course), but I wouldn't be surprised if my own bias is interfering a bit. I do feel the information supporting these mini-theories is pretty good though.