My last Nic/flavor order was from VT, though I've gotten from a lot of vendors, VT has a couple entire lines of eLiquid flavorings I'd never seen anywhere else. Naturally, I'm wary of the unfamiliar since I'm breathing this stuff, but they seem to insist that GFs are legit and "heavily vetted and tested," so, OK, I guess, lol. Would they tell me if they might rot my lungs out? Anyway, they actually sent me a 2ml sample of GFs "CoffeeTime" with my order so what could I do but mix it up, (at the recommended ratio, GFs actually include a % suggestion,) and forget about it for about a month...
Fast forward to last week: it's a legit tasting coffee flavor... It's not perfect, coffees never seem to work out well for some reason, but this stuff doesn't taste like burning tires or rancid dog... It's just like drinking some Maxwell house with a little cream and sugar. The slight bitterness of a French roast is there without the house-fire aftertaste.
I fully expected to throw this away as so many other bottles of failed experiments but I think I'm actually going to end up vaping this and could end up getting more, since a vapable coffee flavor is one of the Holy Grails of DIY...
But NOBODY has put up any reviews outside of VT, ("they're great!" What else would they say?) and I've never seen them anywhere else either...
So what's the deal? Are they all decent-to good 1 flavor mixers? Safe? Consistent? What flavors are "the bomb" vs "a bomb?"
Anybody??
I've tried 10-15 of their flavors, I mean flavours, and found most of them barely decent. It's a legitimate brand, I just didn't find them very good. Some were straight up horrible, such as their nut flavors. I kept two, rosehip and salmiak, haven't found anything quite like them, but got rid of the rest, didn't even want them in my arsenal. If you invest in this, it's hit and miss, but you may dig up some gems if you're willing to venture into the unknown.
I tried a few of their tobaccos. I'll copy/paste my tasting notes. They aren't well organized or anything because they are just my personal notes, but in the event that someone searches German Flavors in a year because they're looking at their tobaccos, it would be good to have this up.
German Flavors speed dating:
Burley: slightly floral, bright, kind of like if you were to mix FLV Native with a rose. Disappointed.
Turkish: wtf, am I vaping Vicks?! It's got some kind of Koolada or some bullshit mixed in there. I never use Koolada in my own mixes because I can never taste past the cooling sensation. There's something that maybe tastes ok in the back, but this one will sit on the shelf until I have a sore throat. Not sure what the hell they were thinking calling this a Turkish. Part of me wants to think they pulled from the wrong place when filling my order. I will say that it's probably just as good as anything I've used a cooling flavor in. But again, that's all I ever really get from them. Probably going to have to rewick now to get that shit out of my dripper.
Tobacco: this tastes just like TFA DK tobacco if I remember correctly. I'm beginning to wonder if these are just TFA flavors rebranded, and maybe some of them mixed together or something. Just like the DK, I do not care for this or really even consider it Tobacco. Kind of bummed they didn't have the 2 ml sample in this flavor. Now I'm stuck with 9.7 ml.
American Gold: finally one I don't hate. Very reminiscent of FLV Native or INW Tobacco Symphony. Maybe a bit sweeter. Might pass as a Flue Cured Tobacco in a mix. Probably a little sweeter than anything I'm aiming for.
Emperors Best: has that damn cooling sensation, though not as strong as the "Turkish." Chugged some ice cold water to reset my taste buds a bit. I can taste a little past the cool, and there's something kind of dark back there. Like SC Black Mile Plus kind of dark. Maybe a little cigar wrapper sweetness. Maybe I'm just grasping for anything to relate these to tobacco.
Pinar Del Rio: fruity. Not like dark fruity. Like berries or something. From a website about actual PDR cigars: "Notes of coffee, cocoa, pepper, and a naturally sweet finish." Fail. Might even be a bit of anise in there. Hard for me to say since my taste buds are pretty upset with me right now.
Arabian Nights: Sweet and kind of fruity. Should not be under their tobacco flavors. None of them should be, really. Maybe American Gold, but that's it. And that one didn't wow me.
Arabian Nights: The fruity accents mostly go away after a 2-month steep and what remains is decent and pretty mild at 4%. I seemed to detect a faint toasty flavor at one point. Wish I hadn't gone back and bought another 30ml though.
They've all been sitting around for 4 months now, so maybe it's worth another taste. I got the 2 ml samples of most of them, but a couple I had to go 10 ml, so if they end up being halfway decent after a super long steep, I reckon I'll at least be able to use them up.
There are a couple reviews in the Flavor Review Wiki and this old post, with brief notes on a bunch of them.
I can only think of one recipe that's used their flavors in recent history.
Doesn't seem like they have any flavors that really stand out as must have or best of.
Thanks. I guess I messed up searching because I used the American spelling of "Flavour" like the dumbass American I am, lol. They look promising though, and I'm not terribly worried about the possibility of diacetyl, one of my regular flavors is V1 Capella's Vanilla Custard, though I think some vendors are subbing V2 or mixing them because I swear it tastes different, less rich, more BS, if I get it from anywhere but Capella's own store...
What would be the benefit of subbing or mixing V2 in with V1 for the vendors?
V2 tastes like shit. Most old school mixers DGAF if there's diacetyl in some of their flavors, they just refrain from vaping those all the time. So if everyone talks about how it might not be safe and how the community should avoid them, but only orders the V2 once then there's bound to be a bug surplus of V2 ... Add that to the fact that diacetyl free flavors last longer, too and it makes sense they'd try to pass it off as V1.
Hello, i know they have been around for quite a while and defo are legit.
https://www.germanflavours.de/liquid-aromen
I never tried them, mainly because pretty much because the DIY community is using TFA, CAP, FW, INA ... for the most part so its easier to just use the same.
Also some TIL > Flavor and flavour are different spellings of the same word. Flavor is the preferred spelling in the United States, while flavour is the preferred spelling throughout the rest of the English-speaking world. The preference extends to all derivatives; American English has flavored, flavoring, flavorful, etc., while the other main varieties of English have flavoured, flavouring, flavourful, etc.
>Though flavor has become the American spelling, it is not new. Examples of its use are easily found in British texts from the 19th century and earlier. The modern British spelling was not definitively settled until around 1800, which was around the same time that influential American educators and lexicographers began pushing the simpler flavor.
Not surprisingly, German Flavors is widely known in Germany, where I am from ;)
You don't have to worry about it "rotting your lungs out", they are indeed tested and certified (TPD2).
But, you won't find anything really good there in my opinion. Or to put it better: nothing you won't get from the INW, CAP, FA TFA...in my stash of about 150 flavors, there is only 1 GF bottle (and I won't buy it again).
That's just my opinion of course.
Regarding coffee, I like FA Up!