Flavour Art Mandarin
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: FA Mandarin @ 2%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 35 days.
Flavor Description: Bright, acidic mandarin. This flavor takes a bit to settle in for me, it's pretty brutal for the first couple ml's. After the harshness dies a bit, I get a warm and waxy mouthfeel along with a pretty realistic mandarin flavor
Inhale has sharp orange zest top notes, with a warm sweetness underneath. Exhale has a fairly sweet and realistic mandarin flavor with some higher orange zest top notes. Still getting that warmth, and the mouthfeel gets fairly waxy. With the zest top notes and the acidity in the mandarin base, the lingering taste gets a green coffee kind of vegetal biterness.
Off-flavors: This gets vegetal and muddled toward the end of the exhale. It's a bit unnerving.
Throat Hit: This stuff is really harsh solo. Not just the zest notes, but the whole damn thing. I get it all, throat hit, chest tightness, some weird acidic mouthfeel.
Uses & Pairings: So contrary to everything above, I don't hate this stuff, I just find it needs some help to be pleasant. My usual go-to is a bit (like .25%) of Ethyl Maltol. It tends to soften the harshness here while making the actual citrus brightness come through a bit clearer. A flavor heavier in maltol like the TFA Strawberries can have the same effect. It works well in fruit mixes where it's balanced with a softer, almost syrupy counterpoint to mellow everything out.
Notes:
Worth noting that this flavor separates. A whole lot. Give it an extra heavy shake before use. After shaking, it's cloudy.
S&V concentration testing, I like this stuff pretty low. At .25-.5% you get a nice spark of brigher citrus, without a ton of the attendant waxyness or throat hit. At a lower concentration, it's definitely zest-forward. Increasing the percentage to 1%, you get more of that tangerine base but the throat hit is right behind. I find the waxyness and the warmness really starts to come in at 1.5%, and by 2% it's a bit of a mess to me. I'd personally mix with this at .5% for a hit of citrus zest, and up towards 1.5% in a mix where you want the actual tangerine and have something in there to mellow out the harshness.
All in all, not a bad flavor but it has some serious structural issues.
Second Opinions:
"Like a fresh mandarin tangerine, not the canned ones floating in bland syrup. If you prefer a 'Cutie' to a navel orange, you'll like this flavor. It mixes great with Fresh Cream, Vanilla Classic, Vanilla Tahiti, and/or Custard to make Creamsicle type flavors. Try it in place of Orange or as an accent for Orange in any recipe to add interest. It will sometimes taste like orange zest if used as a tiny accent for other citrus flavors."
Creamsicle recipe by EnyaWreklaw using this up at 3% Uses FA Orange as a backup, which seems to the play.