Some of you guys may know I've been looking into this since a few months ago. It started when I received TFA Peanut Butter indirectly from the source, and found that my usual PB recipes tasted much different. They were flat, dull, and no amount of steeped helped. I sourced out the problem and found TFA PB was the culprit. This flavoring was generally the same in smell and color, but the flavor itself was very muted. That graininess I found from using it earlier was especially not there. So I decided to check out other vendors and see if there was a difference in the flavorings. Well there was. Every bottle of TFA PB was different. One was way too weak, one had almost no flavor but tons of "grain", one was fine but the flavor would fall off after a day, and another was perfect. But the main issue I found between them all was the flavor itself. It was very inconsistent.

Then the Bronuts fiasco hit and I was getting tons of messages from people claiming their recipes tasted one way, and others tasting a different way, and tons were saying how harsh the recipe was. I knew it wasn't the recipe, because every bottle I made tasted great to me and I have many people who can say the same. So we figured it was the CAP CGD. There was a problem where some bottles of CAP CGD were just...bad. I came to the conclusion that maybe since the ingredient wasn't as popular before Bronuts came out, when the hype picked up vendors started selling old stock of it and unfortunately maybe this old stock went bad. Ordering direct from CAP helped many peoples recipes, and there's recorded proof of it. Then after ordering one of my re-up batches, I found 3 of my flavorings were off. The profiles those ingredients were giving were not matching up to my notes. After testing, these 3 flavorings had a flavor that would fall off after a day or so, and they also did not taste the way they are supposed to. TFA Cheesecake Graham, TFA Strawberry, and FA Fresh Cream. In terms of flavor, TFA Cheesecake tasted as if coconut was added in, TFA Strawberry was harsh and had a very artificial flavor to it, and FA Fresh Cream tasted "spoiled". Replacing these ingredients was all I needed to do to get the flavor I was expecting. Luckily only having to replace them one time.

These were all flavorings I had been using for quite sometime and know exactly how they are supposed to taste. I'm being very observant now a days to the quality of the ingredients I'm getting in. I will let anyone know if I have had any issues with a flavoring should you ask, but so far all of those I listed have had the most notable changes. Now I'm no scientist, or chemist, so I have no idea why this inconsistency is happening. Am I right about old flavorings? Is it the way these flavorings are made that subjects them to a varying product? Is it poor storage by vendors? Is it only certain aromas that are subject to this? I don't know and I would hope that someone smarter than me can figure this out.

But this is an issue I think needs to be known. For someone like me where my livelihood is my recipes, it hurts when someone mixes something up and what they are tasting is something I did not intend. And if you're a mixer, I'm sure you want a product that you paid for to be what you're expecting. So I just want anyone reading this to be aware that this is a known issue when buying flavorings. If you're finding that your recipes that you've tried many times are tasting a little "off" or a little different, try testing your flavorings because that's most likely the issue. Also, I'm sure any vendor will replace your ingredients if you explain to them the situation, I know it's worked for me. But before doing this make sure that it is indeed a problem with your flavorings. If you're new and you have no experience with that flavor, talk to someone who does and see if what they get from it is what you're tasting before calling your vendor. I also found that ordering direct from the manufacturers does alleviate this issue, to some degree. There are still some flavoring inconsistencies but they are pretty subtle. Another thing is, I'm not going to name any vendors specifically but I can say that I've had this problem with most of the main flavoring vendors.

So lastly, I just want to say that this issue isn't a massive one. I'm constantly buying flavorings and out of all of them only a tiny fraction of them turned out to be less than stellar. You might have never even run into this problem, and hopefully it stays that way. These vendors do a really good job at supplying us these ingredients at a low cost and with fast shipping. I just wanted to bring some awareness to the problem so that if you do run into this issue, you might have a solution. KEEP MIXING!