I know I speak for many people when I say Inawera makes amazing concentrates, and I just received a sample of Blackberry-Raspberry INW from /u/0ptimusRhyme out of the kindness of his heart and I'm in love with it. e-aroma shop sells every INW flavor as far as I know for very good prices. It's only $18 for Blackberry-Raspberry, and shipping is affordable. The reason for this post is I will be planning to make an order and sample some random flavors that sound good, and I was wondering if anyone else would care to order different flavors also so we could make a post with notes and support US vendors stocking them. There are 29 different shisha flavors, and I'm sure many of you would be excited to have access to more amazing INW flavors. Lastly, I'll share my notes for Blackberry-Raspberry.
Blackberry-Raspberry- My first taste of this at 3% reminded me of Blackberry FW. It has a sweet (not too sweet like FW's) dark berry taste, and I would compare the lighter berry notes more to Shisha Strawberry than raspberry. I can taste a few subtle notes of raspberry but they aren't prominent especially when it's mixed with other flavors. I'm loving this alone, but even more in a mix with Kiwi FW, Blackberry FW, Blueberry FW, Shisha Strawberry, and my cream base. I'm excited to get a 100ml because I have many plans for this amazing flavor.
This sounds like it's from their new Duets line, which is just a blend of two of their popular flavours like the new kaktus-lime flavour.
It is. What about the blackberry? I haven't ever heard of an Inawera Blackberry. Inawera really makes all of their flavors look like they were made in 1983. The boxes look almost vintage, as far as I thought I knew duets has been around for a while. I'll have to be sure to try more of them. Would cactus lime be literally a mixture of those two flavors? Or would it possibly have different/improved notes and been made from scratch?
ECX & BCV don't stock it, but here it is.
Duets have been around for like a year, if that, IIRC. They're slowly adding more but it's basically a newish line. Yes, it's literally a mixture of the two base flavours. No, you don't get different or improved notes as if they wrote a new concentrate recipe from scratch. Someone reviewed cactus lime not too long ago & wasn't impressed. You'll generally be better off just using the individual concentrates.
So what, it's just the INW Raspberry we all know and love (I don't much anymore), and this? I guess I'll have to try to find this one in bulk, although I really love the Blackberry-Raspberry despite my hate for INW Raspberry. Would you think the high blackberry notes could maybe counter out that ultra artificial raspberry sweetness from it?
If you don't mind, could you disclose the cream base?
Cream Base
- .5% Fresh Cream FA
- .85% Cream FLV
- .8% Whipped Cream FA (Yes FA this is important)
- .5% Marshmallow FA
- 1.6% Vanilla Cupcake Cap
- 1.5% Vanilla Swirl
- .25% Shisha Vanilla
I'm not going to do a huge write-up here, but I'll explain why I used each flavor. Fresh Cream and the Whipped Cream (ECX is the only place I've found this) make a decent start for the cream, along with FLV Cream to add that perfect cream taste. By cream taste I mean almost like Bavarian, I call it a "spiced" cream but most people would take that as something like Catalan Cream. If you've had Flavorah's Cream you'll know what I'm talking about, I think that it makes up a lot of this base which is my signature cream for my line. Another recent favorite of mine is Vanilla Cupcake, and I think it's perfect for creams. I like it better in small amounts with other creams to create a new flavor rather than just this by itself which is also great. Shisha Vanilla is there to add a little depth to the Vanilla Cupcake, along with Vanilla Swirl. Lastly the Marshmallow is just to add a little more body. I like to make it in its own concentrate and then use it at 5-6%.