Inawera Dragonfruit
ConcreteRiver
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.18 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: INW Dragon Fruit @ %1, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 7 days.
Flavor Description: A Rorshach test of a flavor. You name a fruit flavor and you can probably find it in there somewhere. Personally, I taste a mix of light hibiscus-y pineapple and prickly pear (INW Cactus, specifically), but I wouldn't argue with you if you talked about apples, strawberries, kiwis, pears, or even a touch of banana. Really thick and dense flavor, with a disconcertingly smooth mouthfeel. Tastes about 3/4's of the way to /u/ID10-T/ 's Mother of Dragons' Milk solo.
Inhale is really dense. Fairly neutral soft pineapple flavor, but dense as all hell. Creamy even, without any kind of dairy notes. Exhale has some really light floral hibiscus top notes with a subtle kind of light pineapple sweetness in the base. Really dense, soft vape. Not a "juicy" flavor per se, but heavily dense without being dry. Super clean finish, no real change from the beginning of the vape through the end.. the flavor just kind of fades out.
Off-flavors: Again, i'm kind of hampered with never having tasted the actual reference fruit. Based on the second opinions down below, not at all. Definitely nothing unpleasant or out-of-place.
Throat Hit: Ridiculously smooth. So smooth it has almost a negative throat hit, like it's actually soothing my throat.
Uses & Pairings: This is a different beast entirely from TFA Dragon Fruit and they are 100% not swappable. Just throwing that out there. This doesn't have the weird emulsifying superpower that TFA Dragonfruit gets from the triethyl citrate. This is much more an actual flavor with great texture as opposed to something that'll fit anywhere you put it.
This tends to sit pretty forward in a mix, and as such it's a tiny bit tricky to use if you don't want to use this as a primary note. I'd suggest using other concentrates to supplement this, as opposed to the usual usage of TFA Dragon Fruit. Pairs well with most tropical fruits as accents, especially mango, pineapple, and banana. I'd also suggest softer fruits like apples and pears. Go for brighter berries like strawberry or raspberry for a contrasting note that doesn't clash. I'm not seeing this a mixer for bakeries at all, but lighter creams without heavy buttery notes work great.
Notes: S&V concentration testing, this doesn't seem out of line at all for Inawera and is pretty linear. .25% is too light. Some interesting texture but very little flavor, mostly a light pineapple top note. .5% is getting some serious texture, but again a lighter flavor. 1% is dense, and that flavor is definitely filling out. Still feels just a bit unsaturated. At 1.5%, the flavor is getting a bit sharper, with the florals picking up and giving it a pineapple candy kind of vibe on top of that dense base. At 2% the flavor is getting a bit flat, and by 2.5 the florals are bit unpleasant and the entire concentrate just stops cohering all that well. I'd mix with this at 1.0% and work up for a primary note. I'm not sure it's worth trying this as a straight backup or supporting flavor.
Second Opinions:
In the comments for /u/wh1skeyk1ng/ 's TFA Dragon Fruit /u/tranceinate/ says this stuff tastes like an actual dragon fruit: "INW Dragonfruit if you want something that actually tastes like dragonfruit, & not something that tastes like pineapple, apple, pear, & other fruits with emulsifying properties." Actually, there's been quite of a few mentions of this being a pretty accurate flavor including /u/BleuXShadoW/ in the comments for this post on TFA Dragonfruit.
Good reviews on BCF noting accurate flavor, heavy concentration, and the tendency of this flavor to push toward the front of a mix.
[ELR Notes complain a lot about how floral this is, comparing it to INW Cactus quite a bit.] I can kind of see it, but I really feel like the florals here aren't overbearing if used under 2%. I'm a cactus fanboy though, so maybe it just agrees with me a bit more than most.