Classic and modern vaping and long gone flavors

[Barruel]

Hi.

I have been wondering about this for some time, maybe years, but it is now that I'm trying to figure out what's going on. The problem is that I feel that all the good classic flavors in vaping are gone.

I started vaping around 2014.

Initially I used just eGo batteries and simple clearomizers with silica wicks, which I coupled with commercial juices like Tribeca or Nutacco (which is a nut-tobacco flavor from Atmos Lab very popular in the EU and very similar to Halo's Prime 15).

Back then, the flavor I was getting from such a simple gear was amazing. There was the distinct roasted nut in Nutacco and that subtle sweet thing in Tribeca that made it stand as THE juice.

After a while I moved into the then popular Kayfun+Nemesis combo and starting building my own coils. After a few months the Kayfun was replaced with RDAs, the Nemesis with regulated mods and the silica with organic cotton. I also started to mix my own juices.

I'm still vaping RDAs and mixing my juices. I tend to favor flavor-chasing RDAs like the Hadaly, the Citadel or the Profile and I'm using Clapton-like fancy wires or even SS mesh, which I vape at moderately high wattages (40-60W) with double battery mods, but I'm somewhat missing the flavor I was getting in the old days.

I hadn't step into a vaping store for years, but a couple of days ago I stumbled upon one and fancied some Tribeca. The smell I remember is there, but I can't get nowhere close to the flavor I was getting back in 2014. It is not that it is muted. It is just that it is different, like a bittersweet flavor far for the rich sweetness I remember from the old days.

Same thing happens with Nutacco, DRY4 and such kind of flavors. I hoped that just buying a commercial ready-for-vaping liquid might get that flavor back, but I still get the poor bittersweet flavor I get from my mixed DRY4 in the commercial Tribeca I just bought.

Over the years, my vaping has changed so much that the loss of flavors could be because of anything. Maybe it is the wire, the wattage, the coils or even the PG/VG/Nic I'm using. It could be even my taste buds or just that the juices themselves have changed, but the thing is that I'm perfectly happy with fruity or desserty recipes such as this TMAX's Snake Oil clone or this Milk'n'honey clone. It is just that Tribeca/DRY4/Nutacco flavor profile that is lost for me.

I would like to know if anyone is experiencing anything similar with the classic RY4-like flavors and the modern vaping gear. Are there likely explanations for the missing flavor?

Best regards.

TL;DR: Back in the day and using primitive gear like eGo batteries juices like Tribeca used to shine. With modern fancy gear, they seem to have lost their flavor. Why?

 

[Punk In Drublic]

Is your evaluation based on a distant memory or are you currently testing old equipment vs new?

 

[Barruel]

Distant memory, but I'm about to bring back my old Kayfun and kanthal.

 

[DeloresRose]

It could be that you romanticized the old days, the old gear. It could be the old flavors were better suited to that gear. Or it could be that juice makers, upon finding some ingredients not as safe as others, reformulated some of those flavorings and the juice now simply doesn’t taste quite the same with the V2 creams and vanillas.

 

[Barruel]

Or it could be that juice makers, upon finding some ingredients not as safe as others, reformulated some of those flavorings and the juice now simply doesn’t taste quite the same with the V2 creams and vanillas.

Maybe, but then everyone else would have noticed. I'm puzzled.

 

[DeloresRose]

Maybe, but then everyone else would have noticed. I'm puzzled.

Not all that many people used the exact flavors you did though. And how many of them still do, and still comment?

I diy so I definitely noticed a difference when I switched from V1s to V2s.

 

[bombastinator]

Maybe, but then everyone else would have noticed. I'm puzzled.

I noticed a few years ago that tobacco flavorings changed character. They suddenly became very expensive, then they got cheaper again but there was a distinct color and flavor shift. This may be a market thing. Flavorings are made of ingredients and those ingredients change in price.
Flavoring formulation seems to be one of those things hidden from the general public, so tracking changes there is very difficult, at least for me.
A change could be medical discovery, market forces, or machination by some special interest of those market forces.
I have no onformation.

 

[Barruel]

Weird.

I bought a 100 mg/ml nico 2 or 3 years ago to cover from the then incoming UE vaping regulations and I have still half a 500 ml bottle left. It is always in the fridge and in a crystal bottle, but maybe those RY4s are more more sensitive to old nicotine for some reason.

I've ordered something they call a "nicokit", which is just a bottle of 10ml of 20mg/ml PG to mix with the nicotine-free juice they sell now. I also ordered different PG and VG to rule those 3 things out.

I'll post my findings in a couple of weeks.

 

[newyork13]

Thanks for starting this thread.
I've had a very similar experience.
I, for me at least, attribute it to changes in my taste senses. As with you, I really enjoyed Tribeca, which was the juice with which I got off cigs. Many months later it became not at all pleasing. (Still feel both grateful and nostalgic about Halo.)
Most of the juices from years ago are not at all exciting. And many are just unpleasant.

 

[Skeebo]

I experienced the same thing and have my own theory as to why.

I started on 2014 equipment, a MVP and Ce5 tank. I think I was vaping at around 9-10 watts. The flavor was incredible, cloud production not so much. Regardless I still found many juices I liked and they became favorites.

Eventually my friend got me into dripping, which also included lower ohm builds and higher watts. Initially I went out and bought all my old time favorites in lower mg nicotine (3mg) and never in a million years thought anything other than the clouds would be different.

I was wrong.

Ahlusions Caramel Wild Wood's flavor profile twisted so badly under higher watts it was no longer the same juice. Halo's Prime 15, almost impossible to vape at high watts under the old formulation but no where near the same flavor with their high VG variant. It sucked.

In the last year I got into DIY, and my love for tobacco flavors came back. I decided to try them in lower watt, mtl typ vaping devices with higher nicotine. I actually enjoyed them. This sparked a curiosity, so I ordered some of my old favorites-- Prime 15, Tribeca, CWW, etc..; I was impressed--they tasted the same.

I think it's the higher watts, and (for lack of a better term) I think the flavor bends under it, thus changing completely. I do know older eliquid flavors from back then used higher flavor concentrate percentages, perhaps that comes into play as well. It just overwhelms the taste buds at higher wattages maybe???



I was actually enjoying mtl vaping again.

 

[bombastinator]

I experienced the same thing and have my own theory as to why.

I started on 2014 equipment, a MVP and Ce5 tank. I think I was vaping at around 9-10 watts. The flavor was incredible, cloud production not so much. Regardless I still found many juices I liked and they became favorites.

Eventually my friend got me into dripping, which also included lower ohm builds and higher watts. Initially I went out and bought all my old time favorites in lower mg nicotine (3mg) and never in a million years thought anything other than the clouds would be different.

I was wrong.

Ahlusions Caramel Wild Wood's flavor profile twisted so badly under higher watts it was no longer the same juice. Halo's Prime 15, almost impossible to vape at high watts under the old formulation but no where near the same flavor with their high VG variant. It sucked.

In the last year I got into DIY, and my love for tobacco flavors came back. I decided to try them in lower watt, mtl typ vaping devices with higher nicotine. I actually enjoyed them. This sparked a curiosity, so I ordered some of my old favorites-- Prime 15, Tribeca, CWW, etc..; I was impressed--they tasted the same.

I think it's the higher watts, and (for lack of a better term) I think the flavor bends under it, thus changing completely. I do know older eliquid flavors from back then used higher flavor concentrate percentages, perhaps that comes into play as well. It just overwhelms the taste buds at higher wattages maybe???



I was actually enjoying mtl vaping again.

My experience was similar. My current theory is it’s the greater amount of hot air.

 

[Skeebo]

My experience was similar. My current theory is it’s the greater amount of hot air.

I don't know why you are bringing up anything my wife says. Stay on topic.

 

[bombastinator]

I don't know why you are bringing up anything my wife says. Stay on topic.

Would “a hotter vape” be a more useful term?

 

[barkfunklerbunk]

I still use my "antiquated" gear from 2014. The Erlkönigin is just as superb now (still use it daily) as it was then, nothing at all wrong with tootle puffer gear. I've bought some newer RTAs and build on them just like I do with my Erl. I've settled into a sweet spot at about 2.4 .85-.9 ohms on 26g kanthal

My gear preference hasn't evolved much, except going to regulated mods recently. My flavor preferences haven't changed much, I like dessert/fruit flavors, but my nic base has changed. I started out as 18 mg freebase and currently am at 50 mg salts. It really works for me, and I vape far far less, and actually overall I vape less nicotine.

 

[englishmick]

When you first quit smoking your sense of taste comes back. I remember it was a wow experience for a while. Then you get used to it. Maybe that wow period is what you are remembering.

I don't remember vaping tasting better back when I first got my Egos. Maybe because I was using crap Chinese juice at the time. Then I started buying juice on line, and I remember being disappointed with the flavors when I started DIY. I only used store juice for a short time. It's always hard to compare present memories with old memories.

 

[Barruel]

I think it's the higher watts, and (for lack of a better term) I think the flavor bends under it, thus changing completely. I do know older eliquid flavors from back then used higher flavor concentrate percentages, perhaps that comes into play as well. It just overwhelms the taste buds at higher wattages maybe???

When you first quit smoking your sense of taste comes back. I remember it was a wow experience for a while. Then you get used to it. Maybe that wow period is what you are remembering.

Both likely explanations. The wow experience theory fits with the fact that those memories come from the very first few weeks after I left tobacco and started vaping. My transition from tobacco from vaping was very fast. It was no more than 3 o 4 days that I combined smoking and vaping before moving on to just vaping.

The higher wattage theory makes also sense. The clearomizers back then had coils with made very thin kanthal wire that sat around 2 ohms. I guess that the whole vaporization process is very different when using thin high resistance coils and when big Clapton-like sub ohm coils are used and that the flavor is different when the coil hits 400 degrees F in just a second at 50W and when it is vaporized at lower wattages (and also lower temperatures I guess) during a longer period.

The flavor percentage theory is maybe the easier to test and maybe something we may already have resorted to when experiencing the lack of flavor. On the other hand, the nicotine theory that Skeebo mentioned is something I didn't think of. Those first flavorful juices had probably a 18 mg/ml nicotine concentration, which was back then the "recommended" figure for those quitting tobacco, and I went very fast to 6 mg/ml and then to the current 2 or 3 mg/ml. Maybe nicotine acts as a flavor catalyst for those RY4 flavors. Chemists can probably tell if this is likely or not.

It's encouraging to read that

In the last year I got into DIY, and my love for tobacco flavors came back. I decided to try them in lower watt, mtl typ vaping devices with higher nicotine. I actually enjoyed them. This sparked a curiosity, so I ordered some of my old favorites-- Prime 15, Tribeca, CWW, etc..; I was impressed--they tasted the same.

This makes MTL the obvious route to bring back those flavors. Note the "higher nicotine" detail in the quote above.

 

[440BB]

This makes MTL the obvious route to bring back those flavors. Note the "higher nicotine" detail in the quote above.

That's what I've found. Flavors I've enjoyed at low wattage MTL for years still taste great while subohm vaping requires a very different liquid mix, typically higher VG with 1/3 the flavor and nic of my MTL setups.

 

[gpjoe]

I experienced the same thing and have my own theory as to why.

I started on 2014 equipment, a MVP and Ce5 tank. I think I was vaping at around 9-10 watts. The flavor was incredible, cloud production not so much. Regardless I still found many juices I liked and they became favorites.

Eventually my friend got me into dripping, which also included lower ohm builds and higher watts. Initially I went out and bought all my old time favorites in lower mg nicotine (3mg) and never in a million years thought anything other than the clouds would be different.

I was wrong.

Ahlusions Caramel Wild Wood's flavor profile twisted so badly under higher watts it was no longer the same juice. Halo's Prime 15, almost impossible to vape at high watts under the old formulation but no where near the same flavor with their high VG variant. It sucked.

In the last year I got into DIY, and my love for tobacco flavors came back. I decided to try them in lower watt, mtl typ vaping devices with higher nicotine. I actually enjoyed them. This sparked a curiosity, so I ordered some of my old favorites-- Prime 15, Tribeca, CWW, etc..; I was impressed--they tasted the same.

I think it's the higher watts, and (for lack of a better term) I think the flavor bends under it, thus changing completely. I do know older eliquid flavors from back then used higher flavor concentrate percentages, perhaps that comes into play as well. It just overwhelms the taste buds at higher wattages maybe???



I was actually enjoying mtl vaping again.

I tend to agree with this.

Seems like a lot of the old juices and flavor profiles were developed during a time when the equipment was mostly low-wattage, MTL type stuff. As such, I also believe that vaping these same juices on high-wattage mods using dual coils or even single coils made of multi-strand wire (like clapton) may result in a loss of intricate flavors within the profile.

 

[smacuser]

That's why my builds are never under 1.2 ohms and watts over 10.

 

[SupplyDaddy]

Taste buds change.
Flavor from one device to another also change...