Flavorah Acai
ConcreteRiver
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.16 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: FLV Acai @ 1% and 1 drop per 10 ml (about .25%), 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 10 days.
Flavor Description: A lightly tart, dark berry flavor with a cocoa finish. Slightly dry, soft flavor with much in the way of sweetness or juice to it. Well balanced overall. No single part of this is really overwhelming, although it seems like the kind of flavor that will be really easy to pick out in a mix.
Inhale is tart and a bit acidic with a dry flat bluebery sweetness. Moderately dense, even at low percentages. Exhale has a really soft dark berry flavor up front. The base of the berry here tastes flat and muted, without a ton of body to it. Some errant tartness in the top notes, but not nearly as acidic as the inhale. No real floral edge here, at least at these percentages. Back half of the exhale is solid cocoa for me. Not a powdery hot chocolate mix kind of note, and not the really agressive cocoa of something like FA Cocoa. More like a cocoa nib. Overall effect isn't terribly sweet, but it isn't dry enough to be completely astringent or anything. Lingering cocoa on the palate.
Off Flavors: Did you know that real Acai apparently has a cocoa note to it? I had no idea. I've never had a straight acai berry, it's always been in a juice blend or covered in chocolate. I had always assumed that it was all tartness, I had no idea the actual fruit kind of tasted like chocolate. So, it's not really an off note but more of a teaching moment for me?
Throat Hit: Light. There is a bit of an acidic, tart edge to that berry flavor.
Uses & Pairings: I'd primarily use this as a bridge between berry and chocolate flavors. I think the cocoa here is probably enough to read as the cocoa component for a lighter chocolate mix solo, so you'd be free to use something with less mouthfeel issues like FW White Chocolate to bring in the cocoa butter. The berry here is also fairly unobtrusive and work well to reinforce blueberries, raspberries, or strawberries. I've messed around with chocolate and berry mixes before, and half the battle is getting a clear chocolate flavor that won't absolutely destroy your coils. 10 ml in and I still don't have any noticeable coil gore and it doesn't seem to suffer from any kind of pronounced chalkiness at 1% and under.
This is going to be a bit harder to work in a situation where you just want either berries or chocolate. I think both of those flavors really tend to come out in mixes, so this may be a better flavor for a fairly limited niche as opposed to a more versatile straight berry or chocolate flavor.
Notes:
S&V concentration testing, another fairly potent flavor from Flavorah with a fairly narrow band of usefulness. At .25% this flavor is just a bit too soft and indistinct. The berry and the cocoa kind of mush together into a slightly odd soft mix. At .5% I'm getting a clear seperation on the berry and cocoa. Still lacking a bit of punch, but it feels like a complete flavor. .75% has a noticeable tartness on the berry. 1% is getting a touch acidic. The body of the berry is still fairly soft and sitting in the background. Cocoa is definitely there but not overwhelming. 1% is getting a bit sour and acidic up front. The inhale is getting a bit too aggressive solo. Cocoa seems unchanged from .75%. 1.5% is getting too acidic up front and the cocoa is a bit chalky. I'd start with this at .5 or .75% and work up to maybe 1.25% if you really want the tartness of the acai to show up in a mix.
FWIW, the cocoa here is super noticeable in the actual smell of the concentrate and the vapor. The significant other walked into the room and immediately picked it out. I'm currently visiting family and took a bunch of fruitier concentrates to test in some sealed tupperware. It was driving me nuts trying to figure out where that chocolate smell was coming from. I found it, It was the Acai all along.
Second Opinions:
Nah, not really. I couldn't find anything all that useful.
Here's the product page from Flavorah. Their description: "Tart red berry, crisp and dry. Acai is a light flavor that can be added as a top note or subtle note on a base. Not a base flavor in itself, but good to add dimensions to a full bodied flavor that needs high end zip." I mean, they make the flavor and all that, but I can't say I really agree with that product description. I don't get an overwhelming tartness and there is quite a bit of softer round flavor rather than crisp. Also, they don't mention that cocoa note going on here either and I think that's a pretty defining characteristic.