Flavorah Red Apple
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 Red Apple, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 7 days.
Flavor Description: Sweet, red delicious apple. What is is here tastes fairly authentic, but missing juiciness and body. There is some fleshy mouthfeel here, but it comes across dry and gritty due to that lack of a juicy base.
There's a light peel note here. Slightly spicy and grassy. Not as prominent as the peel in FA Fuji, but still present. Adds towards realism substantially but gets just a little weird without a juicy base underneath.
Definitely tastes like a red delicious apple. Flatter, warm sweetness without much in the way of tartness. Sweet, but stops short of candy sweet. There's almost a light hint of something like a banana, reminds me a lot of that same kind of banana-ish note from TPA Quice at lower percentages. Not prominent enough to be distracting, and doesn't feel out of profile.
Off-flavors: Solo, the texture is a bit dry. Doesn't really have that juicy/mealy thing going on that red delicious apples have. Also that lack of juice makes the peel note feel a bit too grassy. Light chemical taste, but nothing too bad.
Throat Hit: Moderate? Seems to need more a base to calm down those grassy peel notes.
Percentage testing: At .5% this feels too light. A bit of red apple on the exhale, but overall just doesn't have any presence.
1% is a bit more filled in. That peel note is coming in, but there's more sweet red apple base around it. Still feels just a bit thin and dry.
1.5% is probably my sweet spot. Peel note isn't too prominent, solid red apple taste. Drier fleshy texture here. Maybe just a tiny bit of a floral edge.
2% feels a bit too dry. Peel note is feeling too heavily grassy because of that dryness. Some bitterness from the slightly floral top end.
3% has an even stronger, spicy peel note. Apple base hasn't really kept up.
Uses & Pairings: This really needs something juicy underneath to work as a full red apple. Seems like an almost perfect use case for CAP Fuji Apple, which is soft, juicy, and doesn't really have a discrete peel note to add. I could also see this working INW Two Apples, but I say that about most apples.
Outside of just trying to nail a red apple, this could be used to add some realism and sweetness to apple juice or cider flavors.
I'm not sure this is right apple for bakeries without some serious help. This doesn't have a heavier, cooked base and the lack of juiciness is going to weird with something like liquid amber. Might be a decent starting place if you want a cooked apple and wanted to avoid the crust note in an apple pie, or the cinnamon in FLV Apple Filling.
The lack of juiciness could work well to add some red apple notes to tobaccos.
Second Opinions: I can't find anything substantive.