rethinking flavour
- Thread starter zouzounaki
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zouzounaki
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this is true. but if your mother had been feeding you the 100 stock
cube soup a couple of times a week, while yer da was out doing he’s avon rounds, you might tolerate it still.
you should mix your favourite blend at 1/10 of your usual strength, let it sit a wee while and see what you think about it.
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Don’t you fucking start, yes?, no?, que?
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Ahhhhh
so you were fed soup that was basically water with the suggestion of flavour in it then as a kid?
This explains a fair bit
zouzounaki
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so no, not at all, just suggesting it might be interesting for you to mix up a wee 30ml tester and try it out. who knows what you think about it? you might love. you might think it’s pish. but you will not know if you don’t try it out, no?
oldhippydude
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A few random thoughts from someone that currently mixes at about 1% flavour.
Before I started diy, in my early days as a vaper, as I reduced my nic I did it by diluting my shop bought juice rather than buy lower nic juice. I did it because I am cheap but I found I preferred the diluted flavour.
I do not think I am a super taster but do not think my vape needs to saturate my taste buds. I do not mind a sweet now and again, a peppermint, or a pinepple chunk is meant to blast my taste buds. My vape, all day every day, absolutely not.
When I started diy 20% flavour seemed to be the norm and knowing I did not like over flavoured juice I started on about 10% and soon discovered that 5% or 6% was better for me. I was there for a long time.
In the last couple of years I experimented with zero flavour and low flavour.
i currently mix at about 1%
My first thought is that, for me it was surprising that as I reduced the flavour I could still taste the flavours so much.
It strikes me that I have seen many threads over the years from people complaining they are not getting flavour from really high % mixes. Imo high flavour mixes are a recipe for vapers tongue. If this thread encourages people to try lower concentrations, I would expect some to be surprised at how much flavour they still had.
My second thought is that often artificial flavours taste more real at lower concentrations. Rum flavour for example at recommended % tastes like artificial rum flavour like you would get in rum and raisin ice cream or Old Jamaica chocolate (if you are old enough to remember that). At a much lower percentage you could imagine it had some rum in it. Pineapple flavour tastes like the pineapple sweet but at a lower percentage it becomes more convincing as fruit.
I am going to stick with low flavour mixes, I prefer it and I am still cheap. i suspect others want the flavour overload that most juices seem to be to me.
Before I started diy, in my early days as a vaper, as I reduced my nic I did it by diluting my shop bought juice rather than buy lower nic juice. I did it because I am cheap but I found I preferred the diluted flavour.
I do not think I am a super taster but do not think my vape needs to saturate my taste buds. I do not mind a sweet now and again, a peppermint, or a pinepple chunk is meant to blast my taste buds. My vape, all day every day, absolutely not.
When I started diy 20% flavour seemed to be the norm and knowing I did not like over flavoured juice I started on about 10% and soon discovered that 5% or 6% was better for me. I was there for a long time.
In the last couple of years I experimented with zero flavour and low flavour.
i currently mix at about 1%
My first thought is that, for me it was surprising that as I reduced the flavour I could still taste the flavours so much.
It strikes me that I have seen many threads over the years from people complaining they are not getting flavour from really high % mixes. Imo high flavour mixes are a recipe for vapers tongue. If this thread encourages people to try lower concentrations, I would expect some to be surprised at how much flavour they still had.
My second thought is that often artificial flavours taste more real at lower concentrations. Rum flavour for example at recommended % tastes like artificial rum flavour like you would get in rum and raisin ice cream or Old Jamaica chocolate (if you are old enough to remember that). At a much lower percentage you could imagine it had some rum in it. Pineapple flavour tastes like the pineapple sweet but at a lower percentage it becomes more convincing as fruit.
I am going to stick with low flavour mixes, I prefer it and I am still cheap. i suspect others want the flavour overload that most juices seem to be to me.
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Simon G
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This thread gave me a headache and I still don't know what to say other than 'It depends'
A little story perhaps?
Once my missus bought a big ready made paella from Waitrose for a treat one evening on the way home from work, she popped in to get some milk and saw it was reduced. As you know I don't like seafood, it was a chicken and chorizo paella. Anyway we popped it in the oven, plated up and we all started eating it.
The kids and the missus were all loving it, but from the first forkfull I was thinking 'mmm, this doesn't taste nice'. I was a little concerned that the chicken was 'off' seeing at it was reduced and on it's 'sell by' date. I said to the missus 'are you sure this hasn't got fish it?' ... she says 'no' and shows me the label on the front film wrap (no mention of anything fishy) ... 'what are you on about it doesn't taste of fish!' .. by this time, while I had been forking it around my plate in disgust her and the kids had all finished and really enjoyed it. To me it tasted pretty rank, so I dug the wrap out of the bin and looked at the rear of the label and right down the bottom of the ingredients was (I forget the exact words) something like 'fish oils or fish extract' ... or something along those lines.
Nobody else could even taste it, it was probably a tiny amount in there just to add some saltiness and enhance the flavours, but to me it was very present and ruined the whole thing.
Point being, I'm not a 'super taster' ... unless it's fish.
A little story perhaps?
Once my missus bought a big ready made paella from Waitrose for a treat one evening on the way home from work, she popped in to get some milk and saw it was reduced. As you know I don't like seafood, it was a chicken and chorizo paella. Anyway we popped it in the oven, plated up and we all started eating it.
The kids and the missus were all loving it, but from the first forkfull I was thinking 'mmm, this doesn't taste nice'. I was a little concerned that the chicken was 'off' seeing at it was reduced and on it's 'sell by' date. I said to the missus 'are you sure this hasn't got fish it?' ... she says 'no' and shows me the label on the front film wrap (no mention of anything fishy) ... 'what are you on about it doesn't taste of fish!' .. by this time, while I had been forking it around my plate in disgust her and the kids had all finished and really enjoyed it. To me it tasted pretty rank, so I dug the wrap out of the bin and looked at the rear of the label and right down the bottom of the ingredients was (I forget the exact words) something like 'fish oils or fish extract' ... or something along those lines.
Nobody else could even taste it, it was probably a tiny amount in there just to add some saltiness and enhance the flavours, but to me it was very present and ruined the whole thing.
Point being, I'm not a 'super taster' ... unless it's fish.
domejunky
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I'll add a another perspective to all this: In my day job I've had to study human perception - quite deeply. One of my favourite researchers is Richard Gregory, who first suggested that perception is mostly memory. His work looks at visual perception, but the same applies to olfactory perception.
The crux of the biscuit is that rather than getting real-world qualia from your sensory apparatus and recovering information about the world from them - they act as triggers for the recall of information from you memory about situations. This is a good demonstration of this:
I think the implications for taste, and what Tom Klark was trying to express, is that you only need enough 'flavour' to trigger memory of that flavour. I think also that accompanying flavours will have a greater impact on perceived strength than physical quantities of a flavour....
Gregory is better at explaining it. I've seen him at a few conferences - he's a lovely bloke...
The crux of the biscuit is that rather than getting real-world qualia from your sensory apparatus and recovering information about the world from them - they act as triggers for the recall of information from you memory about situations. This is a good demonstration of this:
I think the implications for taste, and what Tom Klark was trying to express, is that you only need enough 'flavour' to trigger memory of that flavour. I think also that accompanying flavours will have a greater impact on perceived strength than physical quantities of a flavour....
Gregory is better at explaining it. I've seen him at a few conferences - he's a lovely bloke...
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