Flavorah Lemon Tea
ConcreteRiver
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.15 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: FLV Lemon Tea @ 1% and 1 drop per 10 ml (about .25%), 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 14 days.
Flavor Description: Accurate and warm lightly sweetened tea, heavy on lemons with some black tea on the backend. The lemon here manages to avoid being too candied but doesn't really push into pledge territory. It's more the bright, thin lemon flavor you get from steeping lemon slices in your tea. Black tea takes a bit of a backseat behind all that lemon, but it's fairly realistic with an earthy, astringent edge. A bit harsh solo, kind of cries out for a rounder sweetness or a bit of cream to cut all the thinner lemon and earthy tea. I'd use this as a primary flavor in a mix and build around it to get the tea vape that you want. I feel like this flavor is most balanced around .5%, with the lemon getting more dominant up to 1.5% and the astringency and earthiness of the tea picking up after that. You may want to go higher if you're planning on messing with it a bunch, but you'll be punching down parts of the flavor with other concentrates as they pop up.
Inhale is warm and a bit airy, with sharp lemon up front. Lemon note is more like steeped lemon slices than a lot of available concentrates. Some black tea earthiness in the top notes, and a lightly sweet deep base to it. Exhale has a pretty interesting, light, warm character to it, a lot like actual tea. I get some more solid lemon right up front, with some steeped zest top notes. Lemon forward, with the tea here relegated mostly to the backend. End result is more like a herbal tea than a straight black tea with lemon. Black tea top notes on the end, with a fairly accurate earthiness and just a bit of astringency to it. I still wouldn't call it a sweet tea, but there's some sugary sweetness in here. I get some harshness from this, that bright lemon, warmth, and relative thiness is a bit harsh on the throat.
Off-flavors: At higher percentages this gets fairly astringent, bitter, and earthy. It's not really an off flavor, because tea can definitely come across that way, but solo this isn't a sweet tea flavor which is probably more of what people would expect in vape.
Throat Hit: Moderate, this gets pretty bright and acidic from the lemon and a bit astringent from the tea. I'd call it accurate to warm tea, but it's a bit harsh without either cream or something sweeter in there.
Uses & Pairings: This is damn close to a single flavor. I'd use it up right up front and accent it. You could play on the less sweet, almost herbal tea quality of this and do what /u/HocusKrokus/ did with his Serenity recipe.. He's adding back in some FA Black Tea to get around that lemon heavy nature of the concentrate, and adding some cream to smooth the entire thing out. He also adds lavender, because there is clearly something wrong with him. I might go in the spearmint direction instead to really sell the herbal thing instead of going the floral route.
The other direction would be to sweeten the holy hell out of this to get closer to something like a sweet or iced tea. I wouldn't add any more citrus here, but peaches, raspberries, and mango all work really well with tea and the brightness from the lemon here should let you use heavier fruits that have some body to them.
Notes: This is interesting, and seems to change quite a bit based on percentage used. .25% is a bit on the light side, more just a hit of steeped lemon and warmth, with the black tea just sort of adding dimension to the lemon note. At .5%, I'm getting pretty clear lemon, and the earthiness on back end is a bit more clear. It's not a strong, punch you in taste buds type of flavor, but that kind of strength isn't something I necessarily associate with tea. I like the balance here for a lighter tea. 1% is heavier on the lemon, and it's sharper but I've got no pledge note from this. 1.5% is even heavier on lemon, it feels like the tea note hasn't really changed much from .5%. 2% starts to bring back in that tea, and I'm getting a bit of astringency and the earthiness is bit more solid and clearly reads as black tea. 2.5% is clearly black tea on the back end. 3% is a bit astringent to me, and the earthiness notes are reading a bit dirty. 4% is getting weird and astringent for me solo, where it's almost tasting like older dandelion greens. Personally, I like this down at .5%, and I'd probably use it for a lighter vape in general. I think this is usable higher, and I've enjoyed it at 2.5%, but you're going to have to address and round out some the harshness here.
Second Opinions:
Higher usage of this out in the community. User "Choose", in thier "Berrybiscus Sweet Tea" and user "jaypswiss" in their "Mister Tea" recipe both use this at 4%.]