Solub Arome Guava

Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.13 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.

Testing: Solubarome Guava @ 3%, 7% 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 8 days.

Flavor Description: A whole lot like CAP Sweet Guava, but a bit thinner and harsher. On the upside, it doesn't have that flat sweetness of the CAP "Sweet" line, but it doesn't seem to offer much benefit beyond that. A candy guava flavor, maybe usable in something like a guava nectar with some additional body. Like CAP Sweet Guava, doesn't taste a whole lot like actual guava. Seems to be on the weaker side, I'd use between 5-6% as a primary note and maybe around 3% as a backup.

Inhale is sharp and fairly floral. Some deeper candy guava sweetness but it feels a bit dry and lacking a deeper juicier guava nectar flavor. Not as bright and acidic as FA Guava, but also not as harsh although it's got a bit of a dry throat hit to it. Exhale has guava candy with a touch of artificial banana up front, with floral top notes. More plastic-y than perfumey, but still a bit sharp and bitter. Candy sweet base comes out a bit more on the exhale. Still no real juice to it, almost like a hard candy texture. Sweetness level overall is okay, but the construction seems a bit odd. Sweetness is all up top, without a deeper sugary base. Lingering bitter florals and a bit of a raw acidic mouthfeel. Fairly harsh, mostly a dry harshness.

Oh, and super fun, apparently this may have some oil in it. Or at least it did in 2014. I'm not seeing any separation so maybe it was reformulated?

Off-flavors: Not really for candy guava. Gets floral and plasticy at higher percentages. Also a bit thin overall.

Throat Hit: Harsh right after mixing, settles down a bit, but it's still pretty solidly harsh.

Uses & Pairings: I feel like CAP Sweet Guava can get a bit muddy when mixed at higher percentages with other fruits if you're looking for something bright and refreshing. Since the flavor profile here is so similar, I'd basically use this where I want CAP Sweet Guava but I want to let some other fruits shine though a bit more. So basically fruit mixes with other bright fruit components.

The harshness here is similar to a citrus harshness so this might benefit from mixing with either some straight EM or a flavor with maltol like TPA Strawberry to calm down the throat hit a bit.

Notes: So now chef's is telling me to use this between .5-1% after saying the Brazillian Blood Orange needed 13-15%. Que?

Concentration testing, this doesn't really seem to come together until about 3%. .25% is pretty non-existent. 1% is light and floral, 2% is still distractingly thin, and while 3% is better, it still needs just a touch more to come together as a solid flavor. At 4%, it's still on the thinner side in absolute terms, but you get most of the body available. Sweet, but it's a top heavy sweetness without a juicier base. Clear candy guava flavor though. 5% is a little juicier, but the harshness seems to be kicking up a bit. 6% has a clear bright candy guava flavor but it's starting to push heavily floral and harsh. 7% is getting too floral overall, with that bitter edge from the florals getting a bit chemical.

Second Opinions:

/u/inrespekkt/ warned me about the relative paucity of information available on these, and they definitely seem to be right. We are squarely in the land of poorly indexed forums.

User "Yasumi" on some vaguely sketchy looking forum has a bunch of quick takes on Solubarome concentrates. Their take on Guava: "ah yes, tastes like guava nectar or perfectly ripe fruit, I like it."

User "Bosken85" on ATF has a recipe up called "Yummya Guava" that has a quick note in the recipe description for SA Guava: "It's a real nice tropical styled guava. It's like one of those caribbean version of this fruit. I really enjoy the taste and smell of this Guava. It is more a candy profile though."

Here's the product page from Solubarome. They don't really have a flavor description on there as far as I can tell. There is one review on there from "Celine R", google translated from the french it reads: "Leaves a bit of bitterness at expiration, even by adding sweetener ... Damage"

DIY_eJuice Flavor Reviews

H/T to /u/ID10-T/ for the suggestion.