Disclaimer: I didn't pay for this, shoutout to Decadent Vapours for sending this to me.
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 12 wrap 24g 3.5mm SS316 @.30 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: Decadent Vapours Welsh Pipe, 5% and 10%, 60/40 VG/PG base, Steeped 56 days.
Flavor Description: A robust and fairly dirty sassafras-ish pipe tobacco.
Fairly aggressive tobacco absolute base. It’s definitely a very traditional tobacco forward concentrate. Nothing smokey but a pretty intense dirty ashiness. Robust and dark tobacco flavor, with some heavier roasted coffee or cocoa notes and a moderate amount of sweetness to it. Bitter accents, being picked up by the herbal or botanical side of this.
DV calls out “botanical” notes here, and that’s probably a pretty good description. I’m picking up something like an aniseed or licorice. Seems to come across more like sassafrass than anything else. It’s vegetal while still being fairly crisp, with maybe a hint of fresh grass. No darker, swampy vegetal notes. Also seems to have a bit of a spearmint in the finish, complete with a light cooling effect. I’m not getting that standard Desert Ship type of arabian/turkish vegetal note, seems likes a fairly different beast altogether. I sort of hate that desert ship vegetal note up against any kind of a hint of cocoa or nuttiness, but this seems to be working fairly well.
Full mouthfeel. Not too dry, but also doesn’t feel damp or too moist. Aggressively aromatic without those botanicals being too sharp or thin. Sweetness of the tobacco base plays off the ashy absolute notes and the sharpness of those botanicals to feel pretty well balanced overall.
Off-Flavors: Nothing that feels out of place for a botanical pipe tobacco.
Throat Hit: Moderate, but that kind of feels like part of the point. It’s fairly robust in general.
Percentage testing: At 5%, this is punching pretty hard. Balance isn’t bad here, but feels a bit flat without those sassafras notes really coming through clearly. Perfectly workable here, but maybe a bit less fun.
At 10%, this is bold. Pretty aggressive overall. Heavy ash, heavy tobacco, heavy botanical accents. Still balanced, but a lot fuller.
DV, as usual says 20%, but this is plenty intense for me lower than that. Just based on these tests, I’d probably be around 8-10% solo with this, given my setup and everything. I’d use it as an accent closer to 3%.
Uses & Pairings: This basically just feels like a fully realized solo flavor to me. It’s full, pretty intense, and I can’t really think of anything else I want to throw in there except maybe some FA Black Fire for some smoke.
You could probably use this an accent with a slightly less intense tobacco that doesn’t have that absolute kind of dirty base. This would work well for a cigar wrapper effect in those applications.
As always, amazingly thorough review. Quick question on steeping time: Do you always steep tobaccos for so long? Do you test them earlier even just for shits and giggles? Do you just get backlogged?
I don't really try to do a lot of tobaccos, just because I always feel like I'm trespassing on the realm of the tobacco heads. Like there are a bunch of other people who understand them and what these profiles are supposed to be way more than I do. I'm more of a tobacco as an accent in a mix guy.
I do like to give them some time though. Usually 3 to 4 weeks at a minimum. I made the mistake of trying out some inawera stuff too quickly and just decided to be patient. I'm usually pretty backlogged on testers though, so I'm usually not really dipping into the tobaccos before I actually bust into them for testing. I'm also usually only mixing a couple of tobaccos in bigger batches of testers, so it's easy to put them off to the end. I got a bit ambitious with this round of testers and pushing two months with the decadent vapours stuff.
And thank you.
No, really, thank YOU. I read these all and it’s as much for the learning, the curiosity, the wish I had the time to do the same.
There’s just so much to learn but mostly I love reading the way reviewers connect a single flavor test to how they would use it. It gets me thinking about my own flavors differently.
Also I really love how you in particular link to second opinions and seeing how varied they can be. It showcases how people’s tastes are different and how getting to know a flavor is as much about what your own tastes are as what the objective chemicals taste like.
I've joked that the second opinions thing is mostly just covering my ass, but I do think it's cool to have multiple opinions in one place. Ultimately, when you're relying on anyone to taste and describe something, more information and contrasting perspectives usually helps.
I think having people who review tobacco juices who aren't super into them or exclusively vape them are oftentimes more insightful. With a broader knowledge you can pick up things someone who only vapes tobaccos might not and I feel like a lot of tobacco only reviewers are too much in their own heads when reviewing. Not so much here but elsewhere particularly on ECF. Tobacco flavors are more complex than any other flavor profile so the more varied the opinions on any give flavoring the better.
I feel like, with tobaccos, there can be a lot of taxonomy instead of actual evaluation? Like someone throws out words like "Latakia" and then leaves it there. It's a very specific reference, and not having ever really gone beyond smoking cigarettes, something I'm completely unfamiliar with. I'll 100% cop to my relative ignorance on tobacco profiles, but hopefully a bit of description of the actual flavor gets the point across well enough.
I've been trying to find a turkish silver/gold/royal replica tobacco flavor. I gave up a couple years ago because of lack of available options, is this closer along the lines of what may fit that bill for a base?
Have you tried either FLV Sweet Cigarette or INW US Light Mix? They are pretty similar to each other, but the INW has a bit more of an ash note. They won’t get you all the way to the Turkish silver/gold/Royal, but it’s a good place to start. I’ve messed around with it.
I'm decently experienced with fruit flavors but 100% green on tobacco flavors. I definitely will see how these start out, this is going to be a long project for me I think, thank you for the help! When I first started mixing I heard a lot about the idea of essentially Tobacco which has been infused/soaked in the vg/ejuice, etc. but i'm not sure if thats still in practice by any companies successfully or a viable at home process
I'm completely new to vaping and just doing some research on it but that Vic guy is wrong on perique. It's a tobacco grown in an ever shrinking parish in Louisiana. It tastes nothing like turkish tobacco but it is a blending tobacco, more like a condiment since it's very strong and spicy. He does get that right. It's one of my favorites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perique
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_tobacco
I pretty much just know the word from smoking black american spirits, and I'm pretty willing to guess they didn't have much on the real deal. Thanks for the clarification.