Flavorah Black Cherry
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 Black Cherry @ 1% and 1 drop per 10ml (about .25%), 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 14 days.
Flavor Description: Eh, maybe there is something here that I'm not getting or I got a bad batch of this? I don't really get whats going on here. I get a really light, dry cherry flavor and a whole bunch of slightly chemical, dry marshmallow body. I'm inclined to say this is fairly polarizing because some people seem to dig this, and other people say this is super light and weird. Kind of like INW Cherries, but a darker cherry flavor and substantially heavier on the weird dryness.
Inhale is strange. Light body with a pretty overwhelming chemical taste. Slightly bitter and a little sour. Exhale has some good dark cherry flavor in the top notes, but most of the body here is that strange dry chemical taste. Has a bit of marshmallow flavor if not texture or sweetness. Still thin, and noticeably harsh. Again, I'm a bit mystified.
Off Flavors: Oh pretty much the entire thing. Dry, chemical body with a light marshmallow kind of flavor makes up the bulk of this concentrate for me. It doesn't taste like gasoline or plastic though, so that's something?
Throat Hit: Yeah, this is pretty harsh even at .25%.
Uses & Pairings: Based on my testing, nothing I'd be comfortable suggesting. Too off to really use what little dark cherry flavor I get here. Flavorah suggest tobaccos and dark chocolate, and I can kind of see it. The relative dryer, thinner cherry flavor isn't going to get all juicy and moisten those kind of mixes but INW Cherries operates largely the same way, and to me at least, seems a whole hell of a lot less bizarre.
Notes: Concentration testing, I'm not finding a percentage here that works for me. For a lot of Flavorah flavors, the trick is to use them low, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. I don't much cherry flavor either at .25 or 1%. I will say I get most of the actual cherry down low at .25%, it doesn't seem the like the cherry scales with the percentage. Upping the percentage just seems to add more of that weird dry marshmallow thing. S&V testing, this doesn't seem to improve with higher percentages. I tried 2, 3, and 4% and it just gets more "off" and weird.
Just crossing off the usual culprits, I've tried another rda and I get the same results. I can also still taste other flavors, so I'm pretty sure this isn't a blanket vaper's tongue situation.
I'd be really interested to hear other people's experience with this, because based on my experience, I don't really see how this is a thing.
Second Opinions:
Here's the product page from Flavorah. Their description: "Familiar cherry notes mix well with other flavors or stand alone. Good for use in cherry tobacco recipes. This is not the medicinal black cherry flavor of cough suppressant. This black cherry is like the cherry sauce in an ice cream Sunday or the black cherry in dark chocolate. Free of Benzaldehyde." There's a couple of 5 star reviews on their site, one suggesting tobacco pairings and one noting how the strength and suggesting 2-3 weeks steeping.
Couple of ELR notes saying this tastes weak and is kind of weird.
A vaping underground thread calls this out for tasting like medicine.
Plenty of hints that this is promising or not terrible or in this FOTW post.