Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.15 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: TPA Kalua and Cream @ 1%,3%, 5%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 14 days.
Flavor Description: A thick, heavy kalua and cream for about 5 seconds before it starts to gunk and burn. I was happy, and then I was sad. Blacker than sin in the bottle, this is 100% going to destroy your wicks. It's a pretty decent flavor overall, but 3% seems to be the tipping point where it gets really weird and starts to burn. Should be mostly useful as a thick accent for coffee vapes, but really keep it at 2% and under.
Tested at 1%, inhale has some higher sweet kalua mellow coffee top notes, with a denser cream base. A bit light and heavily sweet, but balanced overall. Exhale is largely the same, with those coffee notes coming out more clearly. I still think there may be a bit of gunking, because I'm getting a scarily accurate roasted coffee top note. Heavy whipped cream base, with a buttery exhale. Pretty sweet overall, with a dense, rich mouthfeel. Lingering slightly bitter coffee notes and a buttery mouthfeel.
Off-flavors: The flavor here is actually pretty good. The cream portion of this has a sort of heavier, almost buttery whipped cream taste to it instead of a straight cream. There is the entire burned/gunked thing at 3% and up though.
Throat Hit: Nah, fam.
Uses & Pairings: The utility of this concentrate is hampered by whatever the hell is going on here with the gunking. Personally, I'd never let this get near a tank. Anything over 2% and you'll be rewicking every 10 minutes if you don't want to pink up a flat, muted, and slightly burnt gunky coil taste.
Used at a lower percentage, this has some good volume and a nice heavy, almost whipped cream and a lighter, sweet coffee liqueur taste. I can't get a strong enough flavor without gunking to really recommend it as a primary note, but it should work okay as backup in coffee vapes with a cream component, just for some added thickness and richness.
Notes: Concentration testing, the limiting factor is definitely when this concentrates starts to taste gunky and burns. With my steeped samples, I'm getting a clear gunk taste at 3%, so I'd keep it under that. S&V tasting, this isn't a super concentrated flavor. It's weak in flavor at .25 and .5%. 1% has a subtle coffee sweetness, and a thicker mouthfeel. 2% doesn't immediately jump out as burning, and really pushes that thick, buttery whip cream. At 3%, I get about 3 drags before I start to taste that gunk.
Second Opinions:
Sometimes I feel like we are on the same wavelength, dropping flavor reviews at the exact same time!
I feel you, bruh. I had been putting mine off all day after figuring out just what kind of burnt mess I was getting myself into. BTW, thanks for doing the grunt work on those LNW flavorings. It'll be interesting to see how they did with the rest of them.
I have wanted to make a recipe that reminds me of kalua. It really shouldn't be that difficult. I just need to buy a rum flavoring. FA UP, FW butterscotch/TFA Carmel original, INW Shisha vanilla and their rum should be a good start. This is might be my next failed project.