I suppose that other than experimenting with both different brands, flavours, and types of liquid (which is an adventure in itself), one of the more significant things I've had to deal with since switching whole hog to vaping is my senses of taste and smell perking back up and possibly even altering.
Case in point: My wife and I just got her brother into vaping because he wants to get away from cigarettes, but he didn't want a huge outlay of cash. So, we split an eGo kit with him and got him a bit of juice to start and see if he likes it and can get used to it. (He seems okay with it but now needs lighter juice and wants an automatic battery, so we ordered that for him last night.) The kit, plus some new Crystal branded juices that we ordered for ourselves arrived last night, plus some new carts because I've been playing with cart mods.
The new juice we ordered is Crystal's PG line (where the previous stuff we've been trying is all VG and other brands). Nice premium green glass bottles with aluminum-topped glass droppers. We ordered Camo Tobacco (30ml) plus a 10ml sampler 5-pack containing Classic Tobacco, American Tobacco, RY4, Bold Coffee and French Vanilla. My brother-in-law came over last night to check out his new PV and sample some juice.
First up: Camo Tobacco.
His impression: Tastes kind of like apple. Apple-flavoured gummy bears.
My impression: Pine Sol.
Okay, Pine Sol is a bit of an exaggeration, but I'm not really sure what it does smell and taste like. Pine Sol is about the closest approximation to the type of smell and taste I'm talking about: Strong, kind of acrid. I'll admit it gave a pretty strong throat hit, which was nice, but the flavour could have cleaned my walls.
Now, I've been off tobacco now for 12 days, while, at least until last night, he's been a smoker, so while my tastebuds have undergone a resurrection, his haven't yet.
But wait. There's more.
RY4 smells great. Kind of nutty with caramel overtones. It tastes ... like diluted Pine Sol. French Vanilla smells and tastes like diluted Pine Sol. Classic Tobacco ... well, it doesn't taste like anything, really. American Tobacco, diluted Pine Sol. Bold Coffee -- now that one is nice. No Pine Sol here, though there's a chemical aftertaste, kind of like an artificial sweetener, but it definitely has a strong coffee hit.
And there's still more.
One of the first juices I got was a generic VG tobacco flavour. When I first started vaping I found it was a slightly sweet fresh tobacco flavour, which was unexpected and took a bit of getting used to but otherwise not at all objectionable. Now it tastes like nothing. I don't mean I've grown accustomed to it, I mean it fails to have any flavour whatsoever. I tastes like I'm vaping water.
Generally, I expected my tastebuds to improve, not change. At least, not like this. What's going on here? Is this just a weird transitional phase my tastebuds are going through or was I really able to taste things before I quit smoking that I can't anymore? Even my brother-in-law is tasting things I'm not with that Camo tobacco. It's kind of throwing off my mojo here. I briefly though that maybe it was because this was freshly mixed liquid and it needed time to set (as I'm told it can taste a bit nasty until it steeps a bit), but this is US-made liquid ordered from a Canadian vendor, so I'd have to imagine that just the shipping time from the US to this vendor surely must have been long enough to steep, to say nothing of how long this vendor could have had it sitting in stock for.
I'm a little baffled here.
Case in point: My wife and I just got her brother into vaping because he wants to get away from cigarettes, but he didn't want a huge outlay of cash. So, we split an eGo kit with him and got him a bit of juice to start and see if he likes it and can get used to it. (He seems okay with it but now needs lighter juice and wants an automatic battery, so we ordered that for him last night.) The kit, plus some new Crystal branded juices that we ordered for ourselves arrived last night, plus some new carts because I've been playing with cart mods.
The new juice we ordered is Crystal's PG line (where the previous stuff we've been trying is all VG and other brands). Nice premium green glass bottles with aluminum-topped glass droppers. We ordered Camo Tobacco (30ml) plus a 10ml sampler 5-pack containing Classic Tobacco, American Tobacco, RY4, Bold Coffee and French Vanilla. My brother-in-law came over last night to check out his new PV and sample some juice.
First up: Camo Tobacco.
His impression: Tastes kind of like apple. Apple-flavoured gummy bears.
My impression: Pine Sol.
Okay, Pine Sol is a bit of an exaggeration, but I'm not really sure what it does smell and taste like. Pine Sol is about the closest approximation to the type of smell and taste I'm talking about: Strong, kind of acrid. I'll admit it gave a pretty strong throat hit, which was nice, but the flavour could have cleaned my walls.
Now, I've been off tobacco now for 12 days, while, at least until last night, he's been a smoker, so while my tastebuds have undergone a resurrection, his haven't yet.
But wait. There's more.
RY4 smells great. Kind of nutty with caramel overtones. It tastes ... like diluted Pine Sol. French Vanilla smells and tastes like diluted Pine Sol. Classic Tobacco ... well, it doesn't taste like anything, really. American Tobacco, diluted Pine Sol. Bold Coffee -- now that one is nice. No Pine Sol here, though there's a chemical aftertaste, kind of like an artificial sweetener, but it definitely has a strong coffee hit.
And there's still more.
One of the first juices I got was a generic VG tobacco flavour. When I first started vaping I found it was a slightly sweet fresh tobacco flavour, which was unexpected and took a bit of getting used to but otherwise not at all objectionable. Now it tastes like nothing. I don't mean I've grown accustomed to it, I mean it fails to have any flavour whatsoever. I tastes like I'm vaping water.
Generally, I expected my tastebuds to improve, not change. At least, not like this. What's going on here? Is this just a weird transitional phase my tastebuds are going through or was I really able to taste things before I quit smoking that I can't anymore? Even my brother-in-law is tasting things I'm not with that Camo tobacco. It's kind of throwing off my mojo here. I briefly though that maybe it was because this was freshly mixed liquid and it needed time to set (as I'm told it can taste a bit nasty until it steeps a bit), but this is US-made liquid ordered from a Canadian vendor, so I'd have to imagine that just the shipping time from the US to this vendor surely must have been long enough to steep, to say nothing of how long this vendor could have had it sitting in stock for.
I'm a little baffled here.
