Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.15 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: FLV Jackfruit @ 1% and 1 drop per 10 ml (about .25%), 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 7 days.
Flavor Description: Juicy slightly overripe pineapple with a nice bright tartness. Sweet, but more accurate to overripe fruit than candy. Relatively light almost fermented funk to this, with some yeasty, bready notes. I'd use this as an accent to ripen and juice up stone fruits at .5%, 1% for tropical fruits, and up to 1.5% with pineapples and mangoes.
Inhale has some really bright, tart and slightly acidic overripe, almost canned pineapple up top. A bit on the airy side, and heavily sweet. Sweetness tastes closer to an actual fruit and doesn't quite cross into candy solo. Exhale has a sweet, juicy pineapple up front. Less sharp than straight pineapple, but seems like a sweeter, riper version of the same flavor. I get some higher slightly funky bready notes, like overripe fruit. Moderate body along with that juiciness actually makes this taste fleshy. I get some more subtle tropical fruit flavors towards the tail end of the exhale. Almost a musky papaya or guava kind of kick after that overripe pineapple. Still sweet overall, but maybe a bit less than the inhale. Just a bit of harshness from that brighter inhale, but the exhale is pretty smooth. Lingering tartness and some of that fermented funk.
Off-flavors: This tastes very ripe, and has a funkier overripe note. I'm not sure how accurate it is to actual jackfruit (although some half-assed googling seems to confirm it's actually a thing with jackfruit), but it can be a bit offputting if you overdo it.
Throat Hit: Not really. Maybe just a little bit from some of the tartness here, but it's pretty mellow.
Uses & Pairings: I really like this as support for tropical fruits, bringing some extra juiciness and ripe realism in an accent role. Works really well pineapple, but I could see it also working with your custard apples (cherimoya, soursop, guanabana), mango, papaya, and guava as well. It's not the most scientific description, but this definitely tastes ripe and "tropical" and it shares enough similarities with the brighter tropical fruits to really make them taste ripe and a bit juicier without overwhelming them.
Notes: S&V concentration testing, this isn't crazy strong. .25% is light and a bit fruity, with a fairly subtle tartness and a flatter overripe note. .5% is already fairly sweet, with that pineapple note coming through. I'm getting some juice and fleshiness here, but it's tasting just a bit flat and that fermented note seems a bit out of the balance with the base. 1% is actually pretty great, tastes a lot like a more realistic, brighter CAP Golden Pineapple with some overripe notes at the end. 1.5% is even sweeter, a bit sharp, and that fermented note is pretty pronounced. 2% is too sweet for me personally, and I feel like the fermented part of this is getting a bit heavy and weird. I'd recommend using this behind other fruits, I think at .5% there aren't too many places this would be completely out of place, I could see it with apples, cherries, and plums too add some tartness, juiciness, and ripeness. At 1%-1.5% the flavor is a bit more aggressive, but I think it would do a great job of supporting anything you want to read as distinctly tart and tropical like mangoes and pineapples.
The only other Jackfruit I'm aware of is TPA, and FLV seems to be quite a bit juicier, a little riper, and have more of fresh fruit sweetness as opposed to a candy sweetness. Actual flavor profile is fairly similar, FLV just tastes a lot more like actual fruit.
Second Opinions:
Again, not a whole lot.
>This tastes very ripe, and has a funkier overripe note. I'm not sure how accurate it is to actual jackfruit (although some half-assed googling seems to confirm it's actually a thing with jackfruit)
It's a thing and it's glorious.
Source: Vietnamese friend had me try jackfruit and durian once. Couldn't handle the durian but jackfruit is the shit.
Damn, I need to try me some of that then. I'm digging this concentrate, but the random googling was getting me hyped on trying to find some actual jackfruit.
Excellent review as per usual. I am so conflicted on this jack fruit as its' primary notes are so beautifully sweet and give us another space to play in but as you note it has those secondary (but present) yeasty, fermented, bready notes....well I haven't tried one in real life either but I see that it is in the "breadfruit" family so that leads me to believe it is part of the flavor profile. TPA has the same characteristics.
I like it in an accent role. I think those bready notes make it hard to use as the primary flavor in a mix, but used behind cleaner (for lack of a better term) fruits it adds some ripe bordering on overripe funk that helps to sell realism in fruit. I get that a lot with pineapple, where there is this tiny window between underipe and overripe, where all the juiciness and heavy sweetness comes out and I associate that same kind of funky almost fermented note with that crazy sweetness from super ripe fruit.
I should say that I totally get where you're coming from though. I basically can't use CAP Sweet Mango as a primary note because it has some of that same overripe funk to it and it drives me up a wall at anything above 1%.
I think everyone can agree that FLV Mango is fucking awesome. But you see me using a small amount of that horrid CAP Sweet Mango with it over and over again. That's because for all it's deliciousness, FLV Mango seems to fall a little short of an actual mango, and CAP Sweet Mango completes it. It sounds like FLV Jackfruit might do an even better job of that. I probably need to revisit some recipes.