Flavor Express Sun Seed
ConcreteRiver
Disclaimer: I didn't pay for these, shoutout to ECX for sending them to me.
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 12 wrap 24g 3.5mm SS316 @.31 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: Flavor Express Sun Seed, .5% and 1.5%, 60/40 VG/PG base, Steeped 19 days.
Flavor Description: Salty, raw sunflower seeds.
Flavor here is very close to raw sunflower seeds. The base of the flavor has a moderate sort of indistinct sweet nuttiness to it, but the top notes really sell it. It has a green raw seed taste to it. There's maybe just the slight hint of earthiness to it, but it feels more heavily weighted toward that strangely authentic seed-ish flavor. It's probably a bit more nutty than seed-ish, but that seed note sticks out quite a bit.
I also get something salty out of this. It feels a lot like the type of salty sensation in some of the heavier nut flavors like FLV Beer Nuts. It's attached to a pretty distinct flavor, so it's going to be a challenge to try to get that salt out by itself, but whatever they are doing actually feels salty to me. I feel it the most on my lips, like I've actually been eating too much salty food, so maybe it is just some sort of saline.
Texture here is interesting. While I get a fairly clear nutty flavor out of this, I get basically no crispier texture. There's a moderately full sweetness in the base, but there isn't anything that feels hard or crunchy to it. I have issues with super concentrates and texture, but it's fairly jarring getting that from a nutty flavor. This is also quite a bit sweeter than you'd expect from this sort of raw sunflower seed flavor. Due to the lack of texture, feels almost like a white sugar sweetened sunflower seed.
FWIW, the room note here is a trip. Pretty dead on to sunflower seeds.
Off-flavors: No harder, nutty texture. Seems a bit sweet for the greener seed notes.
Throat Hit: Moderate. Whatever's gone salty here is also a bit rough on the throat.
Percentage testing: At .5%, I get some nuttiness and a relatively restrained kind of green seed flavor. I'm not getting anything in the way of texture, but it's a bit on the sweet side. Has something that feels a lot like a moderate salty bite.
At 1.5% there's a bit more texture. The nuttiness is a bit deeper and warmer, and that greener seed flavor is more prominent. Sweetness and whatever's passing for salt feel just a little more intense.
Percentage on this tricky. I've used this up to 3% and it works fine... it just tastes a whole lot like sunflower seeds. This flavor is going to act a lot like sesame, where it just sticks out in recipes when it's used at any kind of appreciable percentage. If you want to actually taste sunflower seeds, based on these tests, I'd suggest around 2%. If you want to try to sneak some of this into a recipe as slight nutty accent then I'd suggest below .25%. I've also tried this down at .05%, and while I don't get anything that actually feels like a full flavor, it does taste like a nutty, sweet VG.
Uses & Pairings: If you want to use this as a full flavor, it's going to be hard to get away from the green part of the nuttiness here. It seems like a cop out, but I'd probably go tobacco where that green can play with those leafy notes a bit.
Using it for that more mild nuttiness at low percentages, could be layered in to fill out nuttier concentrates. Fresh seems to be using it for that purpose at .15% in his "Nuttin Butt Fun (Fluffer Nutter) along with FLV Peanut Butter. Additionally, ECX released a [Mango Sticky Rice](https://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/threads/weekly-recipe-mango-sticky-rice.824383/] using Sun Seed at a whopping .02% to concievably add some nuttiness to the rice base.
Second Opinions: I can't find much substantive out there.
Here's the product page from ECX. Their description: "Add the authentic and delicious taste of freshly roasted sunflower seeds to your next DIY recipe! Sun Seeds work well in a standalone mix, but can really shine when paired with other nutty or bakery flavors." Also, not that it matters, but they have trivia for citronella on the sunflower seeds page.