Hello everyone! Just joined the forum. Switched over from cigs to vaping about six months ago. Much easier than I thought it would be. Enjoyable really. The toughest part of switching over was finding good flavors. I've become a big fan of vaping--improved health, the gear and equipment, all of the juice flavors, the community. It's nice to no longer have a conviction to quit something I thoroughly enjoy.
Anyway, I started vaping with a cheap pen from a local tobacco shop and used it for about a week until I picked up a 20w iStick with a Nautilus Mini tank. Good little setup until the threads on the iStick stripped. I was able to use little pieces of thin cardboard in the 510 female connection to make it work but eventually got fed up and bought the 30w IPV Mini and a Kanger Sub Tank Mini. Been using that for a while and love it. Solid kit.
To prolong the iStick setup I purchased the iStick bending adapter (also attached using thin cardboard pieces) for a more permanent solution to my thread issue. Nice workaround but it's already getting loose.
I also just picked up a dripper tank but I find it a messy affair and only use it when I feel like quickly switching to another flavor. I much prefer using sub-ohm tanks over drippers. Although I do enjoy the dripper coil building process and some flavors taste better in the dripper. Haven't yet tried building the RBA on the Kanger Sub Tank Mini.
On to juices. In my frustration to find good juices I almost went back to cigs a few times. Almost. I tried various flavors at local vape stores but I found it wasn’t a good representation of the juices. For one, I would try so many flavors in a single sitting that my ability to discern flavors rapidly declined. Adding to that, most of the tasting rooms in my neck of the woods have crappy little pen vapes with no voltage regulation. Tough to get the full flavor. And just like any type of sampling, it’s one thing to like a few tastes of something, but quite another to enjoy larger quantities of it. For this very reason I have several flavors in my cabinet sitting untouched.
Eventually I tried a few of the online juice companies using recommendations from the web. Not much luck with this approach either. One example of this was the Boba's Bounty flavor from Alien Vapor. I saw this mentioned quite a few times as a fan-favorite so I bought some. I like tobacco flavors, but gross. Steeped, still no. Also tried juices from Fuzion, Mt. Baker Vapors, and Space Jam, and didn't care for most of them. No complexity. Most of the flavors were overwhelming. Some even had strange chemical flavors. I kept reading that I needed to steep. So I steeped. And I steeped some more. What I found, if I don’t like a juice straight out of the mail, steeping ain’t gonna change that. Steeping will only make a juice I already like taste better.
All that being said, I really like a good mix of subtle flavors, whether it's food, wine, beer, scotch, etc., so I started searching for brands with this style of mixing. And this is where I really started to enjoy vaping. One of my local shops had a large selection of brands and I focused not so much on the specific flavors, but the style of mixing for each vendor. I found what I was looking for in Five Pawns, Alice in Vapeland, and Ripe Vapes. All of these brands tasted much more complex than the others I tried. So I purchased a few sample packs online and went to town. This allowed me to try the juices in larger quantities than just a few puffs at the store and to test it in my own equipment. It also helped refine my taste preferences.
In the future I'll be trying juices from Nicoticket, Heather's Heavenly Vapes, and The Vapor Chef. And once I get my five intro posts out of the way I'll start reviewing some of my favorite flavors. See ya around...
Anyway, I started vaping with a cheap pen from a local tobacco shop and used it for about a week until I picked up a 20w iStick with a Nautilus Mini tank. Good little setup until the threads on the iStick stripped. I was able to use little pieces of thin cardboard in the 510 female connection to make it work but eventually got fed up and bought the 30w IPV Mini and a Kanger Sub Tank Mini. Been using that for a while and love it. Solid kit.
To prolong the iStick setup I purchased the iStick bending adapter (also attached using thin cardboard pieces) for a more permanent solution to my thread issue. Nice workaround but it's already getting loose.
I also just picked up a dripper tank but I find it a messy affair and only use it when I feel like quickly switching to another flavor. I much prefer using sub-ohm tanks over drippers. Although I do enjoy the dripper coil building process and some flavors taste better in the dripper. Haven't yet tried building the RBA on the Kanger Sub Tank Mini.
On to juices. In my frustration to find good juices I almost went back to cigs a few times. Almost. I tried various flavors at local vape stores but I found it wasn’t a good representation of the juices. For one, I would try so many flavors in a single sitting that my ability to discern flavors rapidly declined. Adding to that, most of the tasting rooms in my neck of the woods have crappy little pen vapes with no voltage regulation. Tough to get the full flavor. And just like any type of sampling, it’s one thing to like a few tastes of something, but quite another to enjoy larger quantities of it. For this very reason I have several flavors in my cabinet sitting untouched.
Eventually I tried a few of the online juice companies using recommendations from the web. Not much luck with this approach either. One example of this was the Boba's Bounty flavor from Alien Vapor. I saw this mentioned quite a few times as a fan-favorite so I bought some. I like tobacco flavors, but gross. Steeped, still no. Also tried juices from Fuzion, Mt. Baker Vapors, and Space Jam, and didn't care for most of them. No complexity. Most of the flavors were overwhelming. Some even had strange chemical flavors. I kept reading that I needed to steep. So I steeped. And I steeped some more. What I found, if I don’t like a juice straight out of the mail, steeping ain’t gonna change that. Steeping will only make a juice I already like taste better.
All that being said, I really like a good mix of subtle flavors, whether it's food, wine, beer, scotch, etc., so I started searching for brands with this style of mixing. And this is where I really started to enjoy vaping. One of my local shops had a large selection of brands and I focused not so much on the specific flavors, but the style of mixing for each vendor. I found what I was looking for in Five Pawns, Alice in Vapeland, and Ripe Vapes. All of these brands tasted much more complex than the others I tried. So I purchased a few sample packs online and went to town. This allowed me to try the juices in larger quantities than just a few puffs at the store and to test it in my own equipment. It also helped refine my taste preferences.
In the future I'll be trying juices from Nicoticket, Heather's Heavenly Vapes, and The Vapor Chef. And once I get my five intro posts out of the way I'll start reviewing some of my favorite flavors. See ya around...
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