WEEK 54
> Welcome back to another thread for sharing your impressions of single flavors you've tried. Unlike our flavor reviews which go in to a lot more detail, this is the place for brief notes. Here's an example from last week's thread:
/u/ID10-T on FLV Sour Apple > I don’t know how they’ve done it, but this is legitimately sour, like make you pucker a little sour, does a better job of sour than any of the supposedly sour additives out there, which are usually just malic acid. I don’t know what this is, but doesn’t taste like that. I feel it along the jaw like I’ve just eaten a sour patch kid. Sourness is its primary characteristic, but there’s some sweet jolly rancher-ish green apple behind it, though it’s relatively soft and seems even like it really needs to be filled in with another green apple for a full-on green apple flavor. It’s also thin, to the point that it seems like it might have a thinning effect on other flavors, not much body, and very slightly grassy at a single flavor at 2% behind that soft jolly rancher. It’s a little harsh, too, but that seems like a small price to pay for a sour vape. 1% or less is plenty to add a bit of sour to other fruits, like https://alltheflavors.com/recipes/69073#lic_her_ish_by_digitaldrops
####Flavor Notes on 1,110 flavors from 47 different brands compiled here
####SFT Wiki <- To peruse the previous 53 threads.
I am currently testing FLV Chocolate Deutsch at 2%, steeped for 5 days.
Everything has been written already by /u/CheebaSteeba in this review, but I can confirm this is an awesome chocolate flavour!
Is there a way to see which brands/ flavors have been recommended the most over the course of this project? It seems to me like that would be useful, either a number rating of some kind, or a list just compiling the number of recommendations a particular brand and flavor have had over time. There’s JuiceDB, which is very helpful, but they don’t have many DIY juice reviews, so it’s hard to find what you really want outside “premium” juices. Sorry if it’s a lot to ask or has been done before, thank you! (P.S. - if there is an existing list, but it hasn’t been organized by popularity, I will gladly undertake the project myself. I think it’s more than worthwhile.)
MB Nectar Peach @ 4% - it's peach alright. It reminds me of Inawera Peach without the fuzzy earthy crap. It tastes pretty good but hella dry like a lot of peaches seem to be. Maybe I over shot it because it's quite present at 4%. I'll try it lower and report back. I suck at flavor description.
Finally finished trying all these assorted apples.
FW Double Apple -More like a collection of chemicals not fit for human consumption than an apple. Some nail polish remover, some wood varnish, a mix of sweet red and tart green apple, and some weird, bitter spice note. Dry.
FW Apple J Cereal - Cardboard sprayed with a perfume loosely based on apple jacks. No real cereal taste, just brown cardboard and a weird perfumy apple with a dry powdery texture and a strong and slightly clovey cinnamon finish.
TFA Apple Pie - Has something like raw dough with a noxious weird spice note (cinnamon but also something else, something kind of chemical and rancid at the same time), followed by a tart green apple afterthought that tastes a bit candied and very odd up against that already strange spice.
DIYFS Apple Crumble - Similar to TFA Apple Pie, but with quite a bit more apple and a slightly different apple. The apple is nice enough but it’s a little bright and tart and doesn’t really have a cooked-ness like I want. The crumble is a doughy kind of raw-tasting bakery and not a nice crumbly crumble, like an apple slice inside an undercooked biscuit. Spice finish doesn’t taste like full-on bakery cinnamon.
VT Shisha Double Apple - It’s mostly licorice? Bright and soft apple note, very dark very syrupy sweet, I mean dark like molasses, and a whole bunch of strong and lingering black licorice finish.
HC Crab Apple Has a little bitterness to it but not more than the average floral flavor, which is what it tastes like. As much a floral flavor than a fruit. Not perfumy but more natural, like the apple version of say, TFA Cherry Blossom, where it’s primarily a floral flavor but there’s some cherry fruitiness in there. Only with this one it’s more of a fuji-apple blossom.
TFA Apple Candy - Definitely going for something like a green apple jolly rancher, it’s easily identifiable as that. But it wouldn’t have been very high on the list, certainly not above CAP Green Apple Hard Candy or WF Green Jolly Candy. It sort of remarkably has that glossy to sticky hard candy body to it that is missing from a lot of green apple candy flavors. I would even say that’s the primary characteristic of it.
FLV Apple Cranberry - I was really hoping that would be one of FLV’s apples plus their wonderful FLV Cranberry but it it’s only half that. It’s not that thick, smooth, and juicy Ocean Spray FLV Cranberry. Their cranberry is better than this. This is a thin, floral, cranberry behind a punchy and juicy red apple flavor, like their Apple flavor that mostly tastes like apple juice, but with it’s green apple edge replaced with a sharp and somewhat harsh cranberry tartness.
HS Apple Mix Apparently HS has renamed this one “Fruit Mix.” It mostly tastes remarkably like that just add water apple cider powder stuff and I don’t know how you make something like an apple cider donut without it. Softer cooked-tasting sweet apple juice flavor, fairly bright but not hard-hitting. Just a touch of cinnamon in there and possibly another spice I can’t identify hanging around in its sweet and kind of powdery finish. People get some cranberry from this but what I get is more like just a bit of fruitiness and some added tartness than a clear cranberry flavor.
WF Cinnamon Apple Strudel - Perfectly pleasant, very much so, but soft. Some spice but it’s light and tastes more cinnamon-like than authentic rich cinnamon. Nice tasting cooked red apple but it’s soft and doesn’t scream apple at me. Some buttery pastry that tastes good and bready but it’s soft and a little thin. The flavor overall has depth and complexity so it doesn’t read as thin but the bakery part isn’t a thick mouthful of strudel. Has a nice sweet finish almost like powdered sugar. I guess it tastes like cinnamon apple strudel but it seems like it could use more of everything apart from that sweet finish.
CAP Apple Pie - Cinnamon apple with an oddly rich creaminess and no pie crust to be found. Cinnamon tastes exactly like the CAP Cinnamon Danish Swirl cinnamon and is the most prominent flavor here. It’s kind of oddly just a little metallic to me but it’s not a deal-breaker level of off-note. The apple is a bit understated and middle of the road, though the cinnamon gives it the warmth of a cooked apple. The two together really remind me of some Apple Pie Moonshine I had once, to the extent that I want to add some VT Bourbon to it and make Apple Pie Bourbon, but it finishes with some somewhat thick and rich, slightly buttery smooth cream with a bit of vanilla.
CAP Apple Pie V2 - I can barely tell the difference between this and the original, but there are some slight differences. That cream note is diminished and less of a distraction from the cinnamon apple. Same cinnamon, still no crust. Apple is a bit brighter and more prominent red apple but that CDS cinnamon is still the star. Unnecessary vanilla cream is still there, but it’s thinner, drier, and not buttery, with a slightly more forward brighter vanilla. I don’t think they took out the diketones from the OG and replaced them with butyric acid because I’m not getting any barfy taste.
INW Two Apples - It tastes like dried green apples. Not those crunchy apple chips, but the chewy apple slices that are more like the apple version of raisins. A little earthy, with a thick concentrated syrupy sweetness, but a touch of the tanginess of a green apple. It doesn’t taste candied, it’s more of a concentrated sweetness like those dried apple slices have. Not a fresh apple.
WF Apple Cider - Definitely a solid apple cider flavor. Sweet-and-tart with a bit of that darker cooked down flavor like apple cider, but more tart than any spiced apple cider I’ve ever had, maybe apple cider made from green apples? Not really boozy but maybe just a little fermented? Has some spice notes that aren’t quite clear.
WF Thai Apple - Can’t comment on the authenticity or accuracy of this one because I’ve never tried a Thai apple but it certainly is interesting. We probably should have covered it in the first week with the Red Apples, it mostly tastes like a red apple but with a bright, somewhat floral peel, not spicy or acetoney, and softer red apple flavor, and some mildly sweet pear behind it. Fresh, but not too fresh or floral in the peel to be part of an apple layer cooked apple situation.
TFA Quince - It tastes like a pear with a kind of spicy peel and some tart lemony citrus. Bright and Juicy, but not especially sweet, with some depth to it. This could be an excellent addition to so many different kinds of natural, not candy, fruit mixes, both fresh and bakery. Very potent for TFA, 1% is a ton of flavor.
WF Quince Jelly - Fascinating and complex flavor. It tastes like some kind of apple-pear-marmalade hybrid, where it’s got a deep sweet base that tastes like cooked down fruit, especially apple but a nearly equal amount of pear, with a tiny hint of a vague spice on top, and finishing with some bright, tart lemony but kind of grapefrity citrus, that also has a touch of floral on top that tastes like a natural part of some fruit or fruit peel rather than a perfumy off note. Dense, deeply saturated flavor at 2%.
FA Apple Pie - I really just get pie crust from it. No apple. Just the lightest bit of fruity sweetness. No spice, not really, maybe they like wave some cinnamon over the vat of the stuff at FA but don’t actually drop it in. But it’s a really solid pie crust. It’s strong and shows up in a mix and tastes like buttery if a bit doughy crust. Very full and dense crust.
CAP Apple Snacks - Apple Jacks cereal, straight up. Multigrain cereal flavored with dried apples and apple juice and just a hint of cinnamon. No milk. They nailed it. Only thing off I can find is it tastes a little too toasted, like the machine that makes the apple jacks was running a few degrees hotter that day. The cereal flavor, texture, the taste of the apple, the amount and taste of the apple and cinnamon, all of that takes me right back to eating Apple Jacks.
FLV Apple Cider - Very Accurate un-spiced hard apple cider, emphasis more on cider than on apple. Nothing I would call an off-note. Similar to apple juice but tangier and darker like apple juice that’s been cooked a bit, plus some warm, fermented funky booziness prominent and right out front.
CAP Double Apple - Sweet-tart, bright, and juicy authentic apple. No off notes. I think the “double apple” concept is supposed be both red and green apple in one flavor. I can sort of see that - a red apple peel upfront and more of a green apple body. But I don’t quite get that level of separation from it. There’s a bit of red apple peel upfront but it’s fairly subtle. It’s more of a floral peel than a spicy peel, but without that grassy or very tart peel of a green apple. Lots of body and a bit of mealy apple texture. Surprising from CAP, I was expecting something more syrupy and candied but this is more authentic. At the same time, it’s subtle enough that it could lend some of that body to other fruits, like watermelon. Because the red apple peel is on the soft side and green apple body doesn’t have a strong flavor, I don’t quite get that level of red-green separation from it, it’s more like a one of the more tart varieties of reddish pink apples, like pink lady or a jazz apple.
FLV Apple Filling - Apple takes a bit of backseat to the cinnamon and seems like it could stand to be boosted with another apple or two, but what apple is there is a perfect representation of that cinnamony goop inside of something like an apple fried pie; it could use some more apple for the chunks. But for the cinnamony goop, it’s amazing. You get that absolutely perfect baked rich cinnamon flavor right on top, some goopy body, and a lingering sweet and sticky but ever so slightly tangy cooked apple finish.