In case you missed it, Part I can be found HERE
Black Pompom - Wow. Reportedly this one needs steeping but even out of the mail, very nice.
Taste: I never really had a hankering towards pomegranate, and little knowledge of currant, but always liked lemon. The presence of pomegranate and currant is very upfront. Many flavors take a moment for the bouquet to unfold and present, but this one couldn't be further from that. I prefer this sort of vape, rather than waiting around for the taste to appear. Within an instant of inhaling, the taste reminds me of blue raspberry blow-pops. However, there is no sour taste at all, and the flavor is not artificial tasting and overly saccharine. It's more akin to a 100% fruit drink, but without the parch on aftertaste. I suspect this is remedied by the lemon. Closing out the vape is a nice, subdued hint of lemon. On point of interest is that the pomegranate/currant and lime are not mixed, rather separated by what I'll arbitrarily call 85% promegranate/currant followed by 15% lemon. Nice thing about the lemon as it serves as a pleasant palate cleanser. I have very high hopes once this one has had time to steep.
Thoughts: This is where TVC excels. Everyone makes mint chocolate, or RY4, or strawberry, and so on. The culinary artistry involved in blending currant, pomegranate, and lime shows the spark of creativity and knowledge of constructing unique flavor presentations. So glad I took the plunge on this one. The nice thing is I don't get flavor-burn out, and this one is pleasurable from the first vape to the last vape.
Conclusion: Out-of-the-box, this one is already in my Top 5.
SCORE: 7.5 -But, to those who enjoy fruit flavored vapes like i do, a solid 8.5, and don't miss out on this one
==============================================================
12/15/2013
Peppermint Pattie - This one was a bit of a surprise, as in 'I'm surprised it isn't better.'
Taste: Right-out-of-the-box, this one has a pleasant mint taste, and rather than being like peppermind candy, it is definitely derived from mint leaves, and this makes for a much more restrained and more complex 'minty' taste. However, the chocolate taste is disconcertingly weak and nondescript. In my experience, chocolate vapes take a lot of steeping to come into their own, which was definitely the case for me with HighBrow Vapor's Dark Chocolate Mint.
That's all that can really be said about this flavor. It's chocolate, and it's mint. This being the case, the flavor hinges on the quality of the chocolate and mint, and is where, as they say, the rubber meets the road.
Thoughts: How to state this one right, to strike the right balance? I wasn't like this, but I wasn't like this, either. A mixed bag, indeed. The mint is amongst the finest I've tasted, period. Better than the mint in the aforementioned HBV's Dark Chocolate Mint, and light-years better than any average mint flavor. But, the presence of chocolate is beaten down by the already relatively subtle mint. In fact, I can't really gauge the chocolate on its merits, because there's a presence to it, just enough to say it's present, but it's like trying to spot a dwarf in a mob of vikings.
Conclusion: I'm holding on to hope that the chocolate will mature with steeping. It has a ways to go. The only reason the score isn't lower is because the mint flavor pulls the score up significantly. Without the mint, TVC's peppermint pattie'd be like Peanuts' Peppermint Patty, and receive a D- grade on this test. If you like a very good peppermint flavor, then this is your bag, baby. If you want a chocolate mint flavor, like biting into a York Peppermint Patty, you may be better off looking elsewhere.
SCORE: 5.5 - not steeped; mint flavor is excellent, but the chocolate flavor is very weak and nondescript and destroys the overall quality of this flavor. If, and this is quite an if, the chocolate turns out to match the mint flavors' quality, it will be a huge game changer. We shall see in a couple of weeks.
Part III - click HERE
Black Pompom - Wow. Reportedly this one needs steeping but even out of the mail, very nice.
Taste: I never really had a hankering towards pomegranate, and little knowledge of currant, but always liked lemon. The presence of pomegranate and currant is very upfront. Many flavors take a moment for the bouquet to unfold and present, but this one couldn't be further from that. I prefer this sort of vape, rather than waiting around for the taste to appear. Within an instant of inhaling, the taste reminds me of blue raspberry blow-pops. However, there is no sour taste at all, and the flavor is not artificial tasting and overly saccharine. It's more akin to a 100% fruit drink, but without the parch on aftertaste. I suspect this is remedied by the lemon. Closing out the vape is a nice, subdued hint of lemon. On point of interest is that the pomegranate/currant and lime are not mixed, rather separated by what I'll arbitrarily call 85% promegranate/currant followed by 15% lemon. Nice thing about the lemon as it serves as a pleasant palate cleanser. I have very high hopes once this one has had time to steep.
Thoughts: This is where TVC excels. Everyone makes mint chocolate, or RY4, or strawberry, and so on. The culinary artistry involved in blending currant, pomegranate, and lime shows the spark of creativity and knowledge of constructing unique flavor presentations. So glad I took the plunge on this one. The nice thing is I don't get flavor-burn out, and this one is pleasurable from the first vape to the last vape.
Conclusion: Out-of-the-box, this one is already in my Top 5.
SCORE: 7.5 -But, to those who enjoy fruit flavored vapes like i do, a solid 8.5, and don't miss out on this one
==============================================================
12/15/2013
Peppermint Pattie - This one was a bit of a surprise, as in 'I'm surprised it isn't better.'
Taste: Right-out-of-the-box, this one has a pleasant mint taste, and rather than being like peppermind candy, it is definitely derived from mint leaves, and this makes for a much more restrained and more complex 'minty' taste. However, the chocolate taste is disconcertingly weak and nondescript. In my experience, chocolate vapes take a lot of steeping to come into their own, which was definitely the case for me with HighBrow Vapor's Dark Chocolate Mint.
That's all that can really be said about this flavor. It's chocolate, and it's mint. This being the case, the flavor hinges on the quality of the chocolate and mint, and is where, as they say, the rubber meets the road.
Thoughts: How to state this one right, to strike the right balance? I wasn't like this, but I wasn't like this, either. A mixed bag, indeed. The mint is amongst the finest I've tasted, period. Better than the mint in the aforementioned HBV's Dark Chocolate Mint, and light-years better than any average mint flavor. But, the presence of chocolate is beaten down by the already relatively subtle mint. In fact, I can't really gauge the chocolate on its merits, because there's a presence to it, just enough to say it's present, but it's like trying to spot a dwarf in a mob of vikings.
Conclusion: I'm holding on to hope that the chocolate will mature with steeping. It has a ways to go. The only reason the score isn't lower is because the mint flavor pulls the score up significantly. Without the mint, TVC's peppermint pattie'd be like Peanuts' Peppermint Patty, and receive a D- grade on this test. If you like a very good peppermint flavor, then this is your bag, baby. If you want a chocolate mint flavor, like biting into a York Peppermint Patty, you may be better off looking elsewhere.
SCORE: 5.5 - not steeped; mint flavor is excellent, but the chocolate flavor is very weak and nondescript and destroys the overall quality of this flavor. If, and this is quite an if, the chocolate turns out to match the mint flavors' quality, it will be a huge game changer. We shall see in a couple of weeks.
Part III - click HERE
