Capella Marshmallow "New"
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 Marshmallow (The "new" kind) @ 3%. 60/40 VG/PG, steeped 34 days.
Flavor Description: More of a texturizer than an actual marshmallow flavor. Some really light vanilla, but mostly dry sweet volume. I get a really prominent chemical off-note from this entire concentrate, so it's a bit tricky to balance the volume you want with trying to stay away from that chemical taste.
Inhale is bitter with a chemical kind of astringency. Fairly thick though, with a almost granulated sugar kind of dry sweetness. Exhale has some flat vanilla top notes, but that chemical taste soaks through the entire vape. Dry, sweet, and dense body. Overall effect is pretty harsh. That chemical taste lingers and turns bitter at the tail end of the vape.
Off-flavors: I get a pretty heavy chemical taste from this solo. Brighter or creamy flavors help to mask it a bit, but even mixed it ends up showing up. Ends up being really good at pushing grassy notes to the forefront of mixes.
Throat Hit: Moderate. The dryness and density here gets a bit scratchy on the throat, and that chemical astringency aggravates it a bit. Not unvapeable or anything, but not really pleasant solo.
Uses & Pairings: This stuff doesn't really taste a whole lot like a marshmallow. Either TFA or FA is a better choice if you want something that actually reads marshmallow. This stuff does a decent job of acting as a texturizer for other flavors, adding some fluff and volume without too drastically changing the other flavors it's mixed with. Use with thicker creams and brighter fruits. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I don't want to actually taste this in a juice.
Notes:
In terms of usage percentage, I'm going to double down on using this a texturizer and not a discrete flavor. To that end, I've just mixed up 1% FA Raspberry and 3% TFA Cheesecake (Graham Crust) and it's okay. Nothing too fancy. Light raspberry, heavy graham cracker. At .5%, I get a slightly fluffy texture, mostly in the the graham taste. Not a whole lot of cream to start with, but this is definitely drying out the vape and giving it more texture. I get just a hint of that chemical astringency, it's making the raspberry taste a bit floral compared to the reference. At 1% Marshmallow, the mix is getting really fluffy, and that graham is better integrated into the overall mix. Raspberry isn't noticeably more floral than .5%, but I'm getting a clear chemical hit on the back end. That should die down a bit on a long steep, though. At 1.5% this is getting really fluffy, but maybe just a bit muted. The chemical off-taste doesn't seem more pronounced that at 1%. At 2%, I'm getting some of that chemical note on the inhale and some definite muting. Volume doesn't seem to have gone up much from 1.5%. Vanilla is starting to come in as well. 2.5% is getting distinctly chemical, and I'm not getting anything beneficial over 2%. Personally, I'd recommend starting with this at 1% and working up at .25% increments. It'll also probably require at least week steep to settle down a bit, so it may add to your steep time with fruitier mixes.
So, just my $0.02 here... this isn't going to be a great choice for a marshmallow. Seems mostly useful as a texturizer. I like FA Marshmallow for an actual marshmallow flavor and TFA has a really dense nuetral body with almost a buttery overtone. Again, I'm not a huge CAP booster so YMMV.
Second Opinions:
Some talk on New vs. Old marshmallow.
Kind of hard to discern what version of marshmallow the information out there is referring to. BCF has a page specifically for new marshmallow, so it's a good place to start. Couple of decent reviews on there, but one just calls it a sweetener and there's a 2 star that says it smells like kerosene.
Here's the ELR Page. Not super useful but a couple of people talk about a bitterness here.