Capella Anise
ConcreteRiver
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.18 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: CAP Anise @ 1% and 4%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 15 days.
Flavor Description: At 1%, not much of anything. Don't use this at 1%.
At 4%, a sweet, slightly muted anise flavor. Sweet, moderately dense inhale. Flat, oxidized lime juice flavor builds towards the end of the inhale. Exhale has flat slightly bitter black licorice top notes. The anise here is light, almost like the anise flavor you'd get from steeping star anise pods in a cider or sauce. I'd say it's fairly realistic in that way. That flat citrus flavor is pretty prominent. Sweetness is a bit much.
Off-flavors: That citrus note and sweetness are probably not what you're looking for in an anise.
Throat Hit: 2/10. Mild for anise.
Uses: Anise to punch up fruit mixes, somewhere between 3-5%. The anise itself isn't sharp enough for candy licorice notes, and the weird lime flavor isn't going to work all that well with creams or bakeries.
Pairings: Apples, Melons, berries, mints.
Notes: Really subdued for an Anise or herb/spice flavor. I was using this expecting a strong bite, and then wondering why it wasn't showing up in my mixes. Testing as a shake and vape, 4% really does seem to be where this flavor comes out. Pretty solid up to 8%. Flavor stays in the background and the sweetness takes over.
Extremely limited utility for this. I'd say you are better off using a small percentage of FA Anise and filling your profile out with better flavors.
Second Opinions:
Again onto ELR Notes. User Quakas has great notes, which are in portugese. Here's the google translate version:
"Flavor sweet sweet anise to pull more to the sweetened aniseed than to the taste of the plant / root, brighter than the FA anise, transparent, weak intensity, 8% strong, 6% secondary flavor, 4 just to flavor. Tendency to lose character with long steepings, combines well with fruits or vanilla, however little intense, it is necessary to use above 6% to notice in the recipe. Pleasant and non-chemical but begins to weigh the recipe if used above 8% leaves little room for other more complex aromas or recipes."
/u/HocusKrokus comments on an Anise thread that CAP Anise is nice but really sweet.
ECX reviews, 2 or 3 mention this for undertones.
Corroborating evidence that this a good but weaker, accent flavor.