Usually with DeKang steeping is not necessary as it was not handmade the day before. Just because its made in a chinese owner factory, or importer, or by a wholesaler instead of in someone's kitchen does not necessarily make it bad or automatically not as high qualit etc etc. I know of US SPecialty makers that have a bunch of things they use that DeKang would not add in their mixtures that have not been proven to be all that safe .... you cannot always judge by the label.
My own experience tells me that I am running about about even on how many 'bad' tasting flavors I have gotten from Dekang, US manufacturers and custom mixers. Actually the one with the slight edge on the poorest track record for 'bad' experiences is with custom made e-juices. Whats up with that is a long post but mainly has to do with overhead of the cost of Quality Control and Consistency Control.
"Bad Juice" which usually means bad "Tasting" juice is not always on the maker. Taste is subjective. 100 people could love it and to you its horrid but that doesn't make their juices bad. This happens as often with imported juice as with domestic or made as ordered.
My RY4 is DeKang (or was until I could get it cheaper from MBV) and it was no different tasting to me then the ones I tried that were made in the US or made to order. People gravitate to label and others don't.
There is not really anything that says "DeKang" is important and therefore is bad, or USS is domestic and therefore better but not as good as the one with the hand drawn label. Kinda like beer in those aspects.
Never had DeKang butterscotch but I understand butterscotch is one of those harder flavors to get 'right' and have read/heard a lot of bad butterscotch sample reviews from a whole lot of places. Butterscotch may also be one of this very subjective flavors as I have hear people review the same one and come out on opposite side of the fence on two sweet, not sweet enough, too 'brown sugary flavor coming through and cutting the cream, too much cream washing out the brown sugar and butter flavor and so on. Butterscotch is also one of those flavors I found is altered a great deal by the makeup of the diluents and even nicotine content..
It may not be the DeKang recipe or ingredients or manufacture but the vendor you bought it through (unless you bought directly from the manufacturer). How long had it been on his shelf? How does he store these bottle in his store,etc. Since RY4 is a really standard flavor I doubt DeKang is throwing in miscellaneous stuff to change it around. ANd like I said, I have bought it before and found it ever as good as the custom mixed RK4, and not once or twice but I am sure well over 50 times and never had one taste bad.
Since it sound like you ordered these through the same vendor, that is where I would be questioning the cause of the 'bad taste' rather then teh DeKang label.
