Super Concentrated Mandarin

Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 15 wrap 26g 3mm Nifethal 70 coils @.17 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.

Testing: SC Mandarin, .5 and 2%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 10 days.

Flavor Description: Tang. Mandarin orange, with a heavy powdery sweetness. Relatively bright, but fairly harsh without the usual zest culprit. A little bit of earthiness and waxiness to this, but not as earthy as something like FW Blood Orange and not as waxy as FLV Orange Citrus. Overall effect is a lot like CAP Sweet Tangerine, but with a truer sugar as opposed to sucralose sweetness. Doesn't seem to fade as drastically as some other SC flavors. Another flavor I wouldn't really overthink. Sweet citrus in a fruit mix, or a base for a candy orange flavor. I'd stick with the standard 2-2.5% with this.

Inhale is prettily heavily sweet, with a sharper tangerine flavor. No real zest, but a lot of the same kind of harshness. Sweetness level is maybe a step short of straight candy, but it has a bit of a chalky texture to it. Exhale has bright tangerine up front. A little airy and thin, with a slight earthy note note. No real zest top notes. I pick up a bit of warmth and waxiness. Dry sweetness dominates on the back half of the exhale, dragging this into more of a tang than realistic mandarin or tangerine flavor. Lingering sugar lips, but otherwise a fairly clean finish.

Off-flavors: A little bit of earthy waxiness tempering that super sweet tangerine. Not distinctly earthy enough to taste dirty or anything, and the waxiness isn't too bad for a citrus.

Throat Hit: Moderate. Not completely out of a line for a citrus, but it has some rough edges.

Uses & Pairings: I'd use this pretty interchangeably with CAP Sweet Tangerine. It doesn't really have a zest note, so it probably won't work all that well as a light accent. I'd use it a bright component in a fruit or citrus mix with other flavors that aren't cloyingly sweet or harsh. It would also be a good base of a candy orange flavor.

Notes: Concentration testing, this starts out a bit harsh and fills out. At 1% and under, I get mostly a harsh, bright and bright tangerine, but it's still on the thin side. This doesn't really seem to get more harsh as you increase the percentage, but the concentrate fills out with sweeter tangerine around it. 1.5% is starting to fill out, with that sweet tangerine coming in to balance some of that harshness. 2% has a solid tangerine base, and while it's sweet it's not overwhelming. 2.5% has a touch of more recognizable earthiness coming in. 3% tastes a little too green from the earthiness, and that sweetness is pretty dry. 4% is chalky and bitter.

A little unexpected for a citrus, but this seems to be fading out a bit less than some of the SC Fruits I've tested. It's definitely lost some brightness over 10 days, but most of that base tangerine flavor is still hanging around. It's still faded out a bit, but it's not as dramatic as I was expecting.

Second Opinions:

Here's the ELR Page. A couple of quick notes. User "kathybl" says: "@2.5- okay, reminds me of CAP tangerine- something like a kool-aid packaged flavoring."

Postive reviews on VapingZone. User "Joanne G" 5-stars it with : "Fresh like an orange without the purfumy taste. Lightly sweet with a touch of tang at the end of the vape!" User "AzPlumber" also 5-stars it: "Clean, crisp and bright true Tangerine flavor. This one is great from the moment you mix it up. I mixed it at 3%, slightly higher than the 2.5% recomended because I use 80% VG in my mixes. Taste just like you have a section of the fruit in your mouth."

User "shilo" on ECF has a quick review: "Mandarin--Spot on juicy sweet and tart- beautiful back note or great on its own 10 out of 10.

DIY_eJuice Flavor Reviews

H/T to /u/IDI0-T for the suggestion.

Bonus video review link for a couple of SC Fruits.