specs: I ordered a 10ml bottle of FlavourArt’s RY4 flavoring concentrate from Liberty-Flights. I mixed a 15ml bottle of DIY juice using 5% concentrate at 24mg nic strength in a 70/30 pg/vg base blend. The juice is almost colorless and transparent, with only the slightest tint of amber, so little that it’s visible only when held up to the light. I sampled it fresh after mixing, but the flavors tasted raw and unblended, so I steeped it open-bottle for a week. Testing was done by dripping into a 2.1 ohm Joye LR510 atty powered by a Young-June black chrome Mini Vtube set to 4.4 volts, for 9.2 watts.
I made (and steeped) three different mixes of FA RY4 in preparation for this review. The first was a 3% mix (1-3% is FlavourArt’s published recommendation for most of their tobacco flavorings). That one didn’t have sufficient flavor for my palate, so I whipped up two more: 5% and 11%. The 11% batch was clearly too much concentrate; flavors were muddied and not vibrant, and the juice was downright lousy. The 5% batch was what I settled on for this review.
The best thing I can say about the finished juice made from
FA premixed RY4 flavoring is this: “It’s not bad.” I don’t mean that in the “reverse” way some folks talk, such as, “You know, this isn’t too shabby!” No, I mean it literally. FA RY4 flavoring is not bad. There’s nothing in the finished juice (at a 5% mix) that makes me want to gag or put down the PV. And that’s important. Really important. Anything I
don’t like about a juice grabs my attention quicker and more intensely than whatever I
do like about it. Sorry, that’s just how I’m wired: The absence of bad stuff is more important than the presence of good stuff, at least in the beginning. Sure, any juice I love must have some pretty wonderful qualities, but that’s not the initial filter. First, a juice has to pass muster by not putting me off, and FA RY4 gets to the second round on that score.
Well, then what do I
like about it? Not too much, really. The tobacco is OK, but just OK. The caramel and vanilla are acceptable, but they don’t sing like in some RY4s. The overall combination is nothing to write home about, adequate but not special. I pick up something that my brain wants to call fruit more than caramel-vanilla, but I think my brain is wrong. I guess I could write that the lack of too much sweetness is a good thing---which would be true if the caramel and vanilla sang arias---but they don’t. As a result, the lack of sweetness is just that---a lack of sweetness. As a DIY flavoring, none of the three FA RY4s I made has the taste or impact of a good custom RY4 (such as
TFA RY4 Double) or the sparkle of a good classic RY4 (such as
TFA RY4 Asian). Nor are they as tasty as either
Tobacco Express RY4 or
Ruyan 4, which are amply flavorful mixed at 3%.
Maybe it’s my fault. (My intuition tells me that this could be true.) Perhaps the juice hasn’t steeped long enough, or I inadvertently killed it by using too much flavoring (5%). Either mistake is possible as user-error. As it stands now, however, I’m unimpressed. I will steep the juice longer (which means simply that I’ll put it away in my juice stash for a couple weeks) and then try it again. If it’s better, I’ll happily apologize, append this review, and raise the grade. For now, though, this horse seems to me less a thoroughbred than a nag.
FlavourArt RY4 flavoring concentrate grade:
C-
link to purchase:
FlavourArt RY4 concentrate from Liberty Flights
