Super Concentrated Tropical Fruit
ConcreteRiver
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 Tropical Fruit, .5 and 2%, 60/40 VG/PG, Steeped 9 days.
Flavor Description: Mostly papaya. Whatever mix of tropical flavors they are using ends up coming across as a sweeter papaya flavor. It's a little bit sweet than the SC fruits I've tried, not quite instant candy. More like chunked up papaya in syrup or papaya nectar sweet. Light floral edge when freshly mixed. Not as aggressive as the other SC fruits I've tried, but a nice, slightly soft papaya flavor. It fades quite a bit on a steep, so that probably needs to be accounted for. I'd use as a sweet but fairly bright papaya on a short steep or shake and vape, and a sweet background note on a longer steep. S&V percentage is around 2%, with a longer steep I'd go up to 3-4% but I still wouldn't expect more than a couple of weeks out of it.
Inhale is a bit sharp, with some lighter florals. Deep, sweeter papaya base. I know this is theoretically "tropical fruit" but it just tastes like papaya to me. Heavy fruit sweetness, not quite candy sweetness. Small bit of harshness in there and maybe a bit more airy than I'd like. Exhale has papaya right up front. Some very subtle tartness, but it helps set off the heavier, sweeter base. Light floral top notes. Not really realistic, but cooked, syrupy papaya flavor. A little light overall, doesn't really envelop the palate. Just a bit airy, with a really clean finish.
Off-flavors: Nah, it all tastes like tropical and like fruit. I was maybe expecting more of a blend of fruits, but I'll settle for just the papaya. There's a bit of a floral edge, but it's nothing major.
Throat Hit: Light fresh, basically nothing steeped.
Uses & Pairings: It all depends how quickly you plan on using this.
Freshly mixed and within about 3 days, I'd use this as a brighter, sweet papaya in fruit mixes, with creams as a sweeter take on a tropical milkshake or something, pair with citruses, or the base for a tropical candy flavor.
If it's going to steep for a while, I'd either crank the percentage up, or just use it sweet, tropical background noise in mixes with brigher, acidic fruit like pineapple or passionfruit. Almost like the tropical version of apple or white grape juice in actual blended fruit juices.
Notes:
Concentration testing, again this is going to vary based on a steep. At .25%, very light sweetness feels very weak. At .5% it's still light and a little soft. The steeped sample at .5% is very light. Nice, pleasant sweetness but not too much to it. 1 and 1.5% still feel pretty light to me. The papaya flavor is starting to come through but it's pretty one-dimensional without a tarter, brighter note. 2% Fresh is where this really starts to come together for me. Mix picks up a good deal of sweetness, but you're getting some good brighter, slightly tart flavor to balance it out. The steeped 2% test is still sweet, but it tastes pretty flat. 3% is getting a bit perfumey for me, and 4% is too perfumey and sharp at least fresh.
This fades. A lot. This is pretty neat freshly mixed, but after a week the flavor gets fairly vague and just tastes sweet. The fade on this is probably the most extreme of the limited SC fruits I've tasted. I'm not sure if it's the volatiles or the alcohol base, but it's a bummer.
Second Opinions:
I can't find a damn thing.
H/T to /u/IDI0-T for the suggestion.