Flavorah Guanabana
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: FLV Guanabana @ 3%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 32 days.
Flavor Description: Cherimoya or custard apple. Dense, sweet, and creamy. Overall effect is a like a tangy, overripe banana. I get some pineapple, coconut, and almost a cherry/strawberry here as well. Some tart, raw, astringent green notes to watch for but really interesting and full tropical flavor without tasting like an umbrella drink.
Inhale is a bit green and astringent with a soft banana flavor. Exhale opens up with tart, thin pineapple top notes on top of a ripe bordering overripe banana. Some bright fruitiness there too, a lot like a strawberry or cherry flavor. Banana crosses into creaminess and really shows up on the back half of the exhale. Non-dairy and almost like a coconut milk. Moderately dense, exhale has a natural fruit sweetness. That pineapple note kind of leaves your mouth a bit raw.
Off-flavors: Green peel notes, more astringent than earthy. Not super prominent, but noticeable.
Throat Hit: Nah, but it does definitely leave your mouth feeling a bit raw.
Uses & Pairings: Really, just mix /u/deejaymillsnyc/ 's Batido de Guanabana. Awesome use of this concentrate in a creamy milkshake base. Goes really well with creams. Has enough backbone to stand up in a custard as well, although that green note is something to watch with buttery or eggy notes. This would also pair really well with a creamy coconut.
Fruit mixes will be tricky, in that you're likely going to be just reinforcing the flavors that already here and pushing the whole thing out of balance. /u/fuck_u_mean/ talked about that in a comment on a FLV Soursop review: " I've been having a hell of a time finding good pairing that don't just accentuate some of the flavors already present in the individual concentrates (ie pineapple, strawberry, coconut, banana, cream.)" The more I mess with this, the more I agree wholeheartedly. Might help to approach this backwards and use this at a low percentage to boost either a banana a pineapple into a riper, sweeter more realistic fruit.
Notes: S&V concentration testing, fairly dull and non-descript at 1% and under. Just sort of sweaty, creamy vaguely tropical taste. At 1.5% tastes quite a bit like a real banana. The green notes are doing a good job adding some dimension and depth to that soft banana flavor. Really nice at 2%. Those brighter fruit notes show up and that tartness/green flavor is still very much in the background. 3% is personally about as high as I'd go from single flavor testing. It just starts to get a bit weird and too tart. Anything higher, and you're going to need some cream to temper that green edge, /u/deejaymillsnyc/ uses this at 4%, so it's certainly possible. I'd mix this at 1.5% as a supporting player behind other fruits, maybe 2.5 to 3% as a primary note with other fruits in the mix, and 4% if you want to go full out with creams.
Already touched on this quite a bit on the soursop review, but the flavor review list didn't have a seperate entry. This is really tasty, if a bit hard to mix with.
Second Opinions:
Decent notes on ELR, lots of tropical fruit