Capella Caramel V1
ConcreteRiver
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.17 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: CAP Caramel v1 @ %3, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 7 days.
Flavor Description: It's interesting. I get a mix of medium caramelized sugar, maple, and a buttery type of note kind of similar to CAP Vanilla Whipped Cream. Overall effect is pretty solid, and it does taste quite a bit like caramel sauce.
Inhale is dense, a little sharp, and dry, Caramelized sugar top notes. Seems like just a tin bit of like a lemony kind of sourness. It's subtle, and not as sour as some of the other Capella stuff but I feel like it's there. Exhale has slightly dry carmelized sugar right up front, higher almost maple top notes show up after that. The mouthfeel comes in on the back half of the exhale. Has a little bit of wax to it, with a light buttery whip cream moutfeel. Overall, pretty fluffy. Dense, but not particulary rich. Caramelized sugar that doesn't push over to a darker, gritty flavor like FA Caramel or especially FLV Caramel. A little bit of that subtle sourness lingers with that maple top note.
Off-flavors: Light bit of soapyness right on the tail end. Not as pronounced as FA Caramel and you shouldn't pick it up in mixes at a normal percentage. I get some sourness, but I get that with most of the capella bakeries and creams and I don't really here anyone else complain about that... so I'm figuring it's just me here.
Throat Hit: Eh, a little dry. Not really harsh.
Uses & Pairings: It's caramel, man. So anything really. Less of just a straight dark sweetener like FA Caramel or FLV Caramel. You could probably pass this off as an actual caramel sauce with the right cream behind it. The slight maple tinge here actually reminds me of TFA Bavarian Cream, so maybe stay away from that if you don't want the mix to read as too maple-y. If you pick up a sour note, then probably stay away from too thin of a mix. Might get a bit astringent and soapy.
Notes:
S&V concentration testing, .5% is a lighter hint of lightly roasted sugar. I get almost no mouthfeel here. Might be useful-ish down here as a medium-dark sweetener if you don't have FA Caramel. At 1% I get a really insubstantial kind of caramel whipped cream thing. Like caramel flavored kool-whip. 1.5% is pretty similar, but I'm getting a bit more body to that whip cream taste. Tastes like a watered down version of DIYFS Mr. Good Stuff with the maple standing in for vanilla. 2% is like a slightly dry commercial caramel sauce. Those whip cream notes are bolstering the overall caramel effect as opposed to standing apart. 2.5% is getting sour for me, but the caramel sauce tastes a bit fuller. Still pretty cohesive. 3% is where this seems to come apart again. The buttery notes are back off in their own corner and the roasted sugar is getting pretty sour. Still not tasting too dark, though. 3.5% and 4% continues that trend for me. I get more sour lemon dark sugar and some overly-whipped cream. I'd personally mix with this at 1.5-2.0% if you're mixing this with something without a cream note, and start at 3.0% if you are adding some additional cream to smooth out the concentrate.
I actually like this one quite a bit more than FA Caramel as a straight caramel flavor. I think the taste of Caramel isn't especially great, but this seems just dark enough and it doesn't have some of the pronounced mouthfeel problems of FA or the absoloute coil gore of some of the FW or TFA offerings. It's not like a revelation or anything, but it seems pretty solid to me.
Second Opinions:
Surprisingly sparse for a pretty basic capella flavor. All I could find on the sub was that /u/turkourjurbs/ said it "tasted like air" in a older FOTW.
They don't like it much on the 'ol Vaping Underground.
Good reviews on BCF. Mostly positive on ECX, some disagreement between whether this is super strong or way too weak. So that's helpful.
I like a Capella flavor more than ELR. Hell has frozen over.