Flavour Art Rose
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 Rose @ 1%. 60/40 VG/PG, steeped 42 days.
Flavor Description: Chalky rose with a fairly strong green note in there. Like a vegetal rose candy flavor, if that was a thing at all. Personally, this gets weird for me with any kind of extended use. Like it's okay for the first couple drags and then it turns my stomach a bit.
Inhale dominated by a bitter, sharp floral rose. Green, slightly citric sour kind of base sweetness. Exhale has perfume rose right up front. Very floral to the point of being sharp. Not really soapy, but like a potpourri kind of flavor. Green notes come back through underneath as the floral note gets dry and chalky. Still that almost citrus fresh green leaf kind of sweetness. Lingering sourness and powdery rose.
Off-flavors: That green flavor is rough, and as I vape it gets more and more prominent. The powdery mouthfeel is pretty distracting too.
Throat Hit: Moderate, gets harsh and a bit acidic as you really dig into it.
Uses & Pairings: So people do use this stuff. This is a floral forward vape by ATF user "Evan," pairing this with honeysuckle, lavender, pear, and pomegranate. Personally, I'm not touching this stuff at 4%, even with the deadening from the sweetener. ELR user "DarthVapor" uses this as an accent flavor to strawberries in their "Nana's Rose Cookies" which seems smart. Probably the most palatable use of this kind of flavor is adding some complexity to a brighter fruit flavor.
HocusKrokus suggests pairing this with "Lychee, Raspberries, Pear, Hibiscus, Cherry, Grape, and Champagne flavors." Just do that.
Notes:
S&V concentration testing I'm probably the worst person to ask here, but just for the laffs... .25% I get mostly green flavor. Not a lot of really distinct rose. .5% is a bit better. Some of the florals are showing up and complementing instead of fighting against the green note. Like eating fresh roses, basically. At 1% this is getting a lot denser and that rose is getting powdery. 1.5% is making me nauseous, so that's fun. More powdery rose flavor, green note is getting astringent. 2% is just chalky rose up top and that green note is sharp. Just use HocusKrokus's suggestions here. "1.5% in delicate mixes, 2.5% if paired with somewhat more potent flavors. 3% standalone max."
This is 100% not my thing. It's a bummer, because I used to dig rose shisha. I think I want a slightly fuller, tarter, rosehip kind of flavor and all I've gotten from this is a floral, powdery, green mess. It's sort of pleasant for a while and then it just gets sickly. That's my own personal damage, i guess. I hit satiation on this kind of flavor really quick and after that I'm over it. I've been told that attar of rose by Decadent Vapours was good, but that appears to not be a thing anymore... at least according to my cursory googling. I like /u/hocuskrokus/ 's notes on TPA Rose Candy... so I may give that a shot but otherwise I'm done with rose.
Second Opinions:
The man, the myth, the legend... u/HocusKrokus wants to tell you about florals. If you haven't noticed, I pretty much double-checked his review and turned into the patented ConcreteRiver wall of text.
"FA Rose: It smells like bright red roses. The taste is pretty sweet and lightly chalky/powdered sugary. Similar to Rose candies than Rose water. Moderate in strength. 1.5% in delicate mixes, 2.5% if paired with somewhat more potent flavors. 3% standalone max. Pairs pretty well with Lychee, Raspberries, Pear, Hibiscus, Cherry, Grape, and Champagne flavors."
Here's the ELR Page, if you're into that sort of thing.