#FA Soho
Tested at:
3% Single Flavor, approx 75% VG
Tested with:
Vandyvape Paradox
single coil
3mm ID 6 wraps
3x28/36G Ni80 fused clapton
65 watts
Initial Impression:
On the nose it smells slightly sweet and nutty, sort of like if someone were candying nuts directly outside of a cigar shop, Nuts, Caramel, and sweet tobacco. Very much of that smell comes through, though I feel the caramel notes are taking a backseat to the nutty tobacco. It does retain the sweetness I’d look for in an RY4, if that’s the direction you’d want to take Soho, assuming the caramel notes don’t become more prominent with a steep, they’ll need help to really flesh out the profile.
After a week:
This is still really nice. The sweet and nutty notes have gotten stronger, and it’s sort of makes me think hazelnuts. The tobacco is very well blended into the flavor. I wouldn't say it is particularly dark, dry, or leafy. It's very much a supporting note and the sweetness sort of buries any particularly distinct notes in the tobacco. I don’t think this is quite an RY4, I get no vanilla, but it’s very much in the same vein. I don’t know that the caramel notes are really any more forward than they were before, but the flavor is very much in balance. I could honestly vape this all day with little to no modification and be reasonably happy with the results.
Off notes:
Nothing off at 3%. I wouldn’t be shocked if this started to get a bit weird if you pushed it too high.
Throat hit:
Just shy of nothing, it’s very smooth.
Suggested pairings:
Richer tobaccos, caramels, nuts, clove, maybe even a cream if you’re feeling adventurous. It feels like this is very agreeable, sort of a “tobacco with training wheels” type flavor.
I don’t know how anyone gets tobacco out of Soho. Maybe “tobacco” (like TFA RY4 Double "tobacco") but not tobacco
I definitely get a tobacco note but it's sort of a generic almost sanitized tobacco. Something akin to what you'd taste from a minimally flavored shisha tobacco.
That might be the difference. I've never smelled or tasted shisha tobacco, if I had, I might have a broader definition of what tobacco tastes like. I only know tobacco from cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. Edit: And dip and chew and Snus.
All I get from Soho even pushed up to 8% (which you can totally do without it going sideways on you) is dirty nutty caramel. Delicious dirty nutty caramel, with a hint of something like a graham cracker. By "dirty" I mean it has a certain earthiness just exactly like the earthiness of tobacco, but not the rest of the tobacco aroma or flavor.
>“tobacco with training wheels” type flavor.
I like a good Ry4 but don't ever want to get into the whole real tobacco flavors. FA Soho looks like the bridge I need to get into straight tobacco flavors. Thanks for the review
It feels to be very forgiving, and for better or worse it's weaker than many tobaccos so it's a bit easier to work with, particularly for testers.
It's a worthy SFT to see if you want to dive into a world full of bolder tobaccos, or if you're content staying on the RY4/dessert side of the fence
FA Soho always reminds me of brezels
Had to Google that. Pretzels? I don't really see it personally.
Yes, pretzels (Brezel is the german spelling) It‘s not really a pretzel, but it strongly reminds me of a pretzels crust. Might be the ley they use for that.
Just joined after lurking for a good year in here just to say that I wanted to try FA Soho about six months ago but browsing in FlavourArt's Italian site for the notes of the flavor, I saw that they recommend adding 20% of this particular flavor in the mix, which I thought was too scary for FlavourArt. Any ideas why this is the case?
I don't know if I'm allowed to post links but here it is
Yeah, I've seen their rec for it but that's grossly inaccurate. It stands up alone at 3% without issue. Might want to push it higher than that if you're throwing a bunch of stuff at it to compete with it.
I thought you were supposed to use Soho at a higher % because it's already a premixed recipe. Most of the reviews on Bull City talk about using it at 8-10%.
I could be wrong, but the only FA one shots I know of are the Pazzo line.
It's definitely more going on in a flavor than I'm used to but it's on the level of an RY4 flavor for complexity not necessarily a full on one shot.
Looking at those reviews I expected them to be older. It could be a difference in gear though. A big beefy fused Clapton in a nice performing RDA is gonna get a lot more out of 3% anything than something like the Nautilus mini could.