Hello all, I have been into DIY for about 3-4 months now and I am making great progress ( and saving alot of $$) but when I am juice tasting or talking about liquid with my fellow mixers they all seem to taste alot more than I do some examples: I cannot for the life of me taste anything on the inhale,I cannot sometimes taste the higher notes of a liquid,I cannot taste all the notes on the aftertaste
Setup is not an issue as most of the time when juice tasting I usually test the recipe on my kennedy 25,hadaly and goon 24 (all newly wicked and coils recently cleaned)
I have not smoked consistently for more than 2 years so I suppose my taste buds have somewhat been restored,any advice is greately appreciated as I feel this issue is both holding me back as a mixer and limiting my enjoyment of some great recipes!
Thank you all for taking the time to read this
What really helped me refine my goat palette was single flavor testing similar flavors side by side and writing good notes on my findings. It trained me to look for the little nuances in each of the flavors to find the differences. Like test different strawberries side by side for example. You can also make a mix and just swap one flavor for a similar flavor and compare the two. Writing the flavor reviews helped me to put into words what I was experiencing.
I did exactly this for like 8 months before I mixed my own recipe from scratch. I have notes for hundreds of flavors. And it appears that me n concrete river have similar palates so I’d just use his discretion before buying a new flavor. Our tastes matched up perfectly nearly every time.
the best way to taste something better is try different coil metals and SIZES
stainless steel, nichrome or titanium are best AND trying new wick material
for me switching to rayon was the best thing for flavor because you can wick it tighter which helps alot
and it saturates really well. But wicking it is is different so do some research first.
everyone's different, some people LOVE hemp wick
Other than that don't overflavor and everyone has a different palette
I can't taste strawberry at all no matter what
Funny you should say that as I am currently using canna cotton :P great stuff altought it doesnt really beat cotton gods (my go to cotton,0 cotton taste,saturates really fast and is nearly impossible to get a dry hit with it) As far as coils go I exclusively use Ni80 Framed Aliens 2*28 – 6*3/36 handcrafted by a builder I know who does great work and I am fairly certain than nothing I have tried (except maybe some REALLY exotic coils like interlocked and stuff like that) can surpass them in terms of flavour
What's your best tips for wicking rayon?
well I am still tinkering with rayon I'm on my 3rd re-wick with and so far very impressed with it
the wicks and flavour last much longer, stay white and clean for much longer and flavor is great.
I probably use about 20% more rayon than cotton and I thin out and cut at least 50% or more of the rest of it
I use small shoulders on my engine nano and dam the juice holes no rayon goes in. It's really sensitive to how you cut and thin and really seems different depending on the tank you use and takes more time and attention but its worth it
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How’s your diet? I know it sounds silly, but it’s something almost everyone overlooks. If you’re eating a diet high in processed food, sodium and sugar your taste buds could be shot. Olfactory fatigue isn’t vaping exclusive.
I noticed once I improved my diet my senses increased drastically.
More than 2 years smoke free, your taste buds should have recovered (or you have a bigger problem). However, many things influence our sense of taste.
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Before beginning to test flavors or mixes, cleanse your palette. For me, that is coffee (some people smell it: I sip it. I make a cup, take a few sips and leave it sit. Next time I need to cleanse my palette I nuke the coffee 30 seconds to warm it up).
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Never try to taste mixes after eating fish or spicy food. I don't know what it is exactly, but those do a number on your taste buds.
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If testing a number of flavors, try not to group them in like flavors: they just end up tasting alike.
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Finally, accept that some juices just don't work. Too much of one flavor in a profile can actually mute the flavor rather than enhance it. If you can't taste a particular flavor, decrease the amount until you can taste it (possibly an undesired one) and then work to find an ingredient to enhance that.
I'm pretty sure unless you MTL theres no way you will taste much on the inhale. Also, never underestimate the importance of hydration.
Also, you may need more time to fully adjust to the lack of 4% CAP SS in everything , which is basically a defacto standard in commercial juices.
Thanks for the reply! will definately keep in mind to drink some water before tasting ( I am one of those people that 99% of water that comes in my body is from coffee and cocktail icecubes) ,never really vaped commercial juice,most of the times even long before I got into developing my own recips I usually either mixed stuff from the most well knows mixers on ATF or mixed recipes some of the most well respected mixers in my country put on our fb groups
I had the same problem with being „blind“ on the inhale, until I started to let a little bit of air get in with the vapor. How you hold your vape matters a little too, you can hold it so the drip dip aims directly at your tongue.
And drinking lots of water and being hydrated but that goes without saying.
Maybe simply, your taste buds are fried. Let this be a lesson to never get back on the stinkies.
Shut up Chewy he's fine 😂
Stay hydrated. I try to avoid sodas/beer/coffee before a mixing session. Stay away for large amounts of sodium/sugars because they're killers on your palate. Avoid spicy foods on mixing/testing days also.
Practice. Picking out nuance or delicate top notes takes time and exposure. Almost no one "just gets it" their first year in. If you've been vaping commercial juice for a few years, you're accustomed to very high flavoring and very highly sweetened juices. These basically put your palate on blast 100% of the time, while it's very common for DIY recipes and through process to fall on the opposite end of that spectrum.
You'll notice changes to your palate moving forward, but they'll likely be very subtle. Over time you'll be able to pick up TPA Strawberry at low % in a 15% mix instead of having a hard time with 10% TPA Strawberry in a 20% mix.
First of all: HYDRATE. Most of your water intake should be water. Coffee dehydrates (I learned this one the hard way - a week of basically no fluids but coffee and one hospital trip involving a saline IV). So does alcohol. Electrolyte drinks are fine but water water water. Dehydrated tastebuds and scent receptors are ineffective.
Some people are born with sensitive pallettes, some train theirs. I've always been able to pick out flavours and scents easily. My brother can't for the life of him tell the difference between oregano and basil spices, or different types of mint.
Hold the vapour in your mouth for a second before inhaling, really let it push against the roof of your mouth, and then exhale through your nose.
Use a pallette cleanser - I use freshly ground coffee to clear my nostrils and I'll swish a sip of coffee around my mouth to clear my tastebuds. For truly stubborn flavours, I keep a bottle of anise cooking-grade extract at my mixing bench.
Get a couple of the same base flavour from different manufacturers and go side-by-side with them. See if you can tell the difference. Practice this and you'll start to notice the subtle details.
Milk, oddly enough, can boost many flavours.
Point your tip straight at your tongue and use the shape of your tongue to force the flow up over the surface of the tongue and up to the roof of your mouth.
Do you eat lots of really strong flavour foods? Avoid fast food, especially greasy stuff, before mixing or flavour testing. Try a salad heavy on greens and light on dressing before you mix.
The coffee thing is actually a myth. All the advice is good though.
Ehhh, that first bit is a little misleading. They admit in the study that dramatically increasing the amount of caffeine you intake will cause a diuretic effect - in my case I went from two cups a day to two thermoses and no other fluid intake. It was a stressful week lol.
Basically if you aren't increasing your caffeine but maintaining it, and not changing your other regular fluid intake, you're fine.
I've also found different wattages taste better than others with different juices... Experiment with wattages while vaping a juice that you feel has light or no taste to you. ✌
Using a Neti pot with warm distilled water to clean the sinuses helps, especially if you exhale through your nose a lot. I didn't think I could stand the sensation of a nose full of water but got used to it pretty quickly. Also good to do about an hour before bedtime to help breathing through your nose.
Try a tongue scraper to remove any coating on the tongue, useful after meals with strong seasoning, cheese, dairy products. Scrape then rinse well with warm water; helps keep your breath fresh too.