Today I’m going to talk about TAB’s expansion of Insteam’s huge catalog of Stage Flavor flavors. Fast, maximally subjective and with a patina of fireplace ash.
Briefly about the main things: the volume of the bottle – 10 milliliters, recommended infusion time – 2 hours, the recommended concentration of each flavoring is specified on the manufacturer’s website. The total number of flavorings in the line at the time of publication of the article is 45.
Earlier we have already talked about the packaging of Stage Flavor premixes and its peculiarities, and basically nothing has changed since then. australian vape shop Except for one thing on the label that is unique to the tobacco branch – the subheading TAB and the three little leaves next to it.
If you’ve forgotten how the volume fractions of the components are calculated and what to do with them, look in the instructions and use the kneading calculator. It’s not embarrassing, it’s normal. Anyway, don’t forget to stick something as a label on the bottle and write down the date of mixing, its name, strength and ratio of components. Trust me, it will come in handy.
All the resulting mixes of Insteam Stage Flavor TAB were tested on the unchanged MTL-drip Auguse Era RDA with a 0.74 ohm nichrome fuse and Innokin Kroma R in VW Hard mode at power from 18W to 22W. Naturally, before each new flavor, the drip was rinsed, the coil was burned, the cotton was changed for a fresh one, and I took a relaxing one-hour break.
Stage Flavor TAB – Cherry
The smell of natural cherry jam is tinged with the warm flavor of a sweet tobacco blend. Virginia, Burley and ripe, warmed berry are recognizable and mouthwatering.
Powerful, really spicy flavor of cherry pulp with stone fruit. Slightly alcoholic, tobacco-style sour and yet full of chocolate nuances. A fresh, as fresh as possible in the context under consideration, berry exhale is preceded by a sharp, tart inhale and a sweet, woody tobacco exhale. The composition seems to lack volume, and two hours is not enough time for infusion. However, even twelve hours later, there is still some ambiguity – the cherry has become softer and smoother, but the tobacco has lost its zest. As a relatively light cherry tobacco with an emphasis on berries – yes; as a sticky saucy tobacco with cherry liqueur – no.
Stage Flavor TAB – Classic
The flavor is dry, with a pronounced acidity, mostly grain and woody. Some hint of earthiness and bourbon pears are present. A typical vaper American blend, which has not been tried except for the lazy or isolated tobacco lover.
The basic flavor of basic tobacco as it is. Viscous, dry aftertaste of tired wheat and oak bark, fresh fruity inhale and sweet exhale, reminding something between vanilla cookies forgotten on the table and a tea leaf that has been hanging over the steam boiler for a week. If we turn off the lyrics, we get it – a classic tobacco, perceived as something trivial, but still filled with its own, special music.
Stage Flavor TAB – Coconut
Coconut fresh, coconut washed, coconut dropped and shattered. The smell gives away almost nothing about the presence of tobacco in the mix. Of course, it would be more correct to say that the coconut and tobacco in the flavor are so congruent that they have merged into one delicious something, but correct doesn’t mean truer. It is coconut, and nothing else, that bursts forth in the impressions of the fragrance – sweetish, with bits of peat and a drop of alcohol, with a soft milky base and an almost palpably slippery texture.
The sense of tobacco in the mix is fleeting and insignificant, as if it was never there. This flavor is primarily about coconut – oily, unripe, ground into a single mass of earthy shell, bitter-sour skin and smooth, slightly sweet flesh with a hint of heavy cream. Fatty and hearty, perfect for a brutal version of Pina Colada with a cigar or a strong, masculine dessert with mango and rum.
Stage Flavor TAB – Coffee
The flavor is sweet, coffee-like sour, but suddenly creamy and therefore reminiscent of Vietnamese three-in-one coffee. The astringent, grassy-tart smell of tobacco leaves is imperceptible at first. It bursts in suddenly and literally permeates the serene coffee bean through and through. Now that’s tobacco, now it’s all in place.
I managed to achieve a pronounced tenacity of tobacco and distinct coffee acidity without a sensation of honey cream only with a double portion of flavoring in the final mix. Dense, conditionally ashy flavor with bright accents and a broad base against a delicate, unruffled drink with an herbal tinge. It’s a great variation, to be quite frank – the maximum concentration (without soapiness and bitterness) here is much higher than the recommended 10%, which means that experimenting with the product is not only possible, but also necessary.
Stage Flavor TAB – Mild
A modest, slightly sweet and slightly sour herbal cigarette blend flavor. Restrained, without interjections of admiration, but clearly structured and most importantly tobacco.
The flavor is very close to the previously tried classic, but is sweeter and more delicate. The name fits perfectly – as if a salt crystal and two dustings of soda were added to the mix, it’s soft and draughty. The only thing that rises above this sweet and salty plateau is the floral sourness of the tobacco, and even that is sometimes too quiet.
Here, by the way, you should be careful – already at 12-13% the delicate florals turned into a cruel perfuminess for me. This premix only seems simple and cozy.
Stage Flavor TAB – Sweet
No, I didn’t mix up the bottles, but at the same concentration, this sample was less sweet than the previous one. Its aroma is fresh, herbal, with noticeable but on the whole minor voices of fermentation and wood sugars. Quite pungent, it should be noted.
The flavor is similar to the aroma. A sweet backing of a mix of dark and light caramel, and the sharp, powerful freshness of raw tobacco in the attack. The body of the flavor is either empty or assembled from a drop of base and lots of topping. It’s a strange mix that I don’t associate with the name, but it’s harder to get away from it than all the others mentioned earlier.
Stage Flavor TAB – French
The flavor is bright, fruity, with minimal tobacco tones and without any heaviness. Pear, apple, cherry and grape, a touch of vanilla and milk chocolate, plum and raspberry. It’s a gorgeous scent.
The flavor is equally gorgeous. It opens up not only with a variety of fruits and berries on the background of warm tobacco leaf, but also with the tones of smoking. Spices, wood of different species, this mix is as multifaceted as it is dangerous – because of the overloaded composition, each next drop of aroma can become a point of no return. It’s better to underfill, I’ve tested it.
Stage Flavor TAB – Chocolate
The flavor is interesting, combining cocoa, cognac, vanilla and tobacco. However, there is almost no smell of tobacco here – most of the volume is given over to a moist chocolate mass with subtle spices and a hint of milk or butter.
Bitter cocoa beans, woody sweetness, viscous spices with a slight but sharp hint of black pepper and a pleasant numbness of the tongue – this is tobacco chocolate, fully agreed and given to its power. Tobacco and chocolate and its various variations have always been my weakness, so an adequate research evaluation of the premix just won’t do. On the other hand, as a consumer I can quite well say: “good chocolate bar, you can chew it”.
Overall impressions and conclusions
There is a lot to play with! As it turns out, it’s not enough to have information about something, you also need to realize it in order to proceed to further actions. That’s what I mean – it is possible to mix flavorings. With each other within the same line, with other lines, with flavorings of other manufacturers, even with ready-made liquids. A drop of coffee tobacco in a creamy cookie? Coconut tobacco in a Pina Colada? Chocolate tobacco into a menthol mint? Yes. It’s a game, it’s experimentation.
