First off, my sincere thanks to
the hangdude for sending me nearly full 5ml bottles of these juices. His generosity in passing on to me some of his hand-me-downs is helping to keep my reviews alive. I really appreciate that.
Both these juices are nearly clear liquids, with just a slight golden tint, at 18mg nic concentration in a mostly-VG base (90%VG/10%PG). They’re both extremely thick and would probably benefit from a little thinning with vodka, everclear, or distilled water for use in a carto tank. Throat hit is mild at 18mg nic, and vapor production is copius for each one, as we would expect from mostly-VG.
ecizusa STB Tobacco
When I first got ready to test the STB Tobacco (“STB” is an acronym for “Simply The Best”) by atty-dripping, I blew out the remaining juice from the trusty 1.8 ohm LR306 I use as my standard test atty, then added five drops of the very thick (90%VG/10%PG) liquid. At 4.4 volts, I took a toke and thought, “How weird---lemon tobacco.” Then I realized that the juice I’d just blown out of the LR306 was a Lemonade diy juice I’d recently made up, and that was the reason I was tasting lemon. Ack! Juice contamination! Lemon’s a particularly hard flavor to purge from an atty when changing juices. Menthol and mint also tend to linger after cleaning.
So, I swapped out the LR306 for a standby 1.5 ohm LR510 bonut-modified atty I had within easy reach on my desk. Lower resistance requires lower voltage. I clicked down the voltage on the Vtube a couple tenths to 4.2 and took a hit. Yuk. Nasty, burnt taste. I turned it down again to 4.0 and took another hit. Still burnt. Finally, after going all the way down to 3.7 volts, I found the sweet spot and the real flavor.
How was it? Quite good, actually. Smooth, subtle, but still tasty, with the tobacco flavor wrapped in the creaminess of the almost-all-VG base. It reminded me again why I prefer American-made tobacco flavors to the Dekang Chinese tobacco flavors. Dekang’s flavors are just too specific for my palate. They leave no wiggle room for my brain to improvise. Many of the American-made custom tobacco blend juices are somewhat more vague, or at least not so laser-focused in their flavor profiles, which in this context is a good thing. They let my brain more easily fill out the flavor by association, morphing it a little, and literally improving it.
Does this juice justify its superlative acronym---Simply The Best? I don’t know about that, but it does compare favorably with my current two favorite straight tobacco juices (by “straight,” I mean juices that allow the tobacco to be the star and shine through on center-stage, rather than the many “candied” blends, such as Vanilla Tobacco or Caramel Tobacco, where dessert flavors may compete or even overwhelm the tobacco. As an example, Vermillion River Kentucky Premium Blend and NLV Bounty Hunter are both delicious juices, but neither is what I consider “straight” tobacco). My two current favorites for straight tobacco are MrVapes Special Blend and Aroma Turkish Blend (without WTA). STB Tobacco isn’t quite on a par with either of my faves---they're both fantastic, while STB is just pleasing---but it leans in the same direction of smooth, creamy goodness.
I’m impressed that STB does so well at “low” voltage (I hardly vape at 3.7 volts anymore). The downside is that---at least with my particular test equipment---STB doesn’t hold up well at any voltage from 4.0 volts on up. The juice seems to burn very easily.
ecigzusa RY4
If you put Janty Elixir RY4 at one end and STB Tobacco at the other, ecigzusa RY4 is not close to the Janty end of the scale. It’s not even in the middle. It’s much closer to STB Tobacco than it is to just about any RY4 I can think of. I’d say it’s essentially STB with a hint of caramel and the slightest wisp of vanilla.
The owner of ecigzusa (who is, I presume, the juice-maker/creator of ecigzusa’s juices) left a post on the ecigzusa thread in the Supplier’s Forum stating, half-jokingly, that he’d considered calling this juice “
not-RY4.” I think that’s a good idea, for it’s not truly RY4-enough to be called “RY4.”
Not that it’s a bad juice. I like it just about as well as I liked the STB. Maybe a tad less, perhaps a bit more. Hard to judge. It would probably depend on my mood. The RY4 is somewhat sweeter than the STB, but both juices are really very good. Neither has any off-tones or odd flavor elements that detract from enjoyment, and their core flavors are smooth and yummy.
Each juice is an all-day-vape candidate rather than a knock-your-socks-off, in-your-face juice. They’re subtle but satisfying, and I think many people could vape one or the other of these juices (which they’d prefer depends on how much of a sweet tooth they have) for a long time without getting tired of them. You marry juices like this for the long-term rather than court them in a torrid or romantic love affair. They offer friendship much more than passion. Agape rather than eros. And friendship can be a very good thing.
As it so happens, I’ve been introduced recently to a significant number of new RY4s and tobacco blends that are very subtle. My palate is grateful for this, because for me, intensely flavored juices tend to be either extremely good or extremely bad. Even when they’re good, though, there’s something about intensely flavored juices that becomes quickly “too much” for my palate. Flavor overkill. Juices with a combination of subtlety and wonderful taste, such as
MrVapes Special Blend, MrVapes RY4, and
Aroma Turkish Blend are preferable to my taste buds, even though I’m not an all-day-vape kind of guy.
Well, add these two ecigzusa juices to that list (and one sort-of-RY4 to the Big List). I’m happy to make their acquaintance.
ecigzusa STB Tobacco
ecigzusa RY4
Man that stuff is SO GOOD!
