Inawera Lemon
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: INW Lemon @ 1%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 13 days
Flavor Description: Bright, tart, moderately sweet candy lemon instead of a lemon juice or actual lemon flavor. Not quite as thick and sweet as FA Lemon Sicily, but very much in the same vein. No creamier undertones like JF Juicy Lemon either. I don't get a lemon pledge or cleaning product kind of vibe from this at all, which can be a problem with stronger citruses that don't have a ton of body.
Inhale is all lemon deep candy sweetness. No real zest here. Moderately dense but a building kind of sharp tartness. Exhale has a softer lemon candy flavor. Fairly bright, dense but no hint of any cream or anything like that. Definitely a candy sweetness, but not too sugary. Really light zest top notes but those accent the candy flavor as opposed to taking over. No lingering astringency or weird top notes, mostly a little bit of rawness in the mouth and a bit of a bit of a sugary mouthfeel.
Off-flavors: Nope. It's a fairly strong lemon flavor but at a reasonable percentage there is nothing that skews toward astringent or cleaning products.
Throat Hit: Pretty light. It's a strong citrus flavor, but it's fairly smooth all things considered.
Uses & Pairings: This flavor should fit in where you need a tart candy lemon type of flavor, but all of the other options are just too sweet. The tartness here is really cool, and something that doesn't really show up in the sweeter candy lemon concentrates.
Seems like the best use would be lemon bakeries and creams where you want to have a flatter, more savory base that isn't just straight sugar. I think it'd go well imparting good lemon flavor in like a cheesecake or milkshake
This gets a good amount of play in lemonade flavors, specifically because it has some of the tartness you get with sweetened lemons, but still manages to avoid being oversweet or too heavy. Seems like a good lemon for sweet tea as well. This still gets a bit too sweet for my tastes at higher percentages, but it's definitely more nuanced than some of your other options.
Notes:
Not quite as strong as you'd expect from a lemon flavor from inawera. Not weak by any means, but you can get over 1% without completely destroying your sinuses and throat. S&V Concentration testing, At .25% I get a lighter tartness. At .5% there is some sweetness, but the lemon flavor is feeling a bit thin. 1% is good, with some balanced sweetness and a bit of a sharper lemon tartness. Solo at least, 1.5% seems to be the sweet spot here. I get a full sweetness, some balanced tartness, and a nice clear flavor. After that the sweetness takes off at the expense of the more nuanced tart lemon. 2% seems distinctly sweet to me and by 3% I'm getting a more straight ahead lemon candy flavor like Lemon Sicily. Personally, I'd mix with this starting at .75% in accent roles with other fruits around, and maybe push to 1.5% and work up for stronger lemon bakeries and creams. I know this gets used higher (cough ID10-T) but I think at higher percentages it works more as a candy lemon sweetner than a good standalone lemon flavor.
Second Opinions:
Plenty of talk about this in the sub, just no flavor review.
Really good discussion of how this stuff works in the INW Lemon Mix Review. Among the most salient points:
"INW Lemon 3% works great as the main flavor in a lemonade recipe but I wouldn't recommend using it that high otherwise because it would overpower other concentrates. However, it's only about half as strong as Lemon Mix. At 3% you don't get that perfume quality you get when you make the mistake of using just a little too much of many INW flavors. Also no lemon Pledge taste like you get at higher percentages of other lemons. Throat hit is present, as you would expect from a citrus, but not excessive: INW Lemon has less throat hit than an equal amount of Lemon Mix. The sweetness almost gets into lemon candy territory, though, and it is missing that lovely, slightly bitter note that Lemon Mix has. It's flatter, too sweet, and less natural-tasting without being backed up by some Lemon Mix." -/u/ID10-T/
Here's your ELR Page. Mostly postive about strength and accuracy, although a couple complaints about a soapy taste.