# DIY on another level



## ibi

Hi guys hope you all well 

Have you guys ever tried steeping one flavour into the next to get that base flavour and another upon exhale?


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## Christos

I'm not following steep intro the next. Please elaborate.

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## ibi

@Christos when you steep one juice and when that's fully steeped add another flavour into it so the one is tasted when you inhale and the second only tasted upon exhale more of an after taste 


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## Lingogrey

ibi said:


> Hi guys hope you all well
> 
> Have you guys ever tried steeping one flavour into the next to get that base flavour and another upon exhale?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone 7S using Tapatalk


Hi @ibi

Hope you are well too. I assume that you are referring to the practice of steeping a juice by concentrate or number of concentrates for different times respectively - eg. adding PG, VG, Nic (if used) and concentrates 1 and 2 - steeping it for a week; adding concentrate 3 -steeping it for another week; adding concentrates 4 & 5 - steeping final mix for another week? Whilst I'm no expert, I doubt that staged steeping would play a very noticeable role on what flavours you get on the inhale and what on the exhale (e.g. the 'oldest' flavour on the inhale and the 'newest' flavour on the exhale). Where it could play a major role is where you are mixing concentrates with very different optimal steeping times - I actually spoke about this to a very knowledgeable mixologist the other day.

Tobaccos, for instance, usually require long steeping times. However, one of the newer tobacco concentrates on the market is apparently excellent, but actually starts 'fading' after a few weeks. If you were to make a tobacco blend with this concentrate and some that require long steeping to bloom, you would end up with this concentrate having faded significantly by the time the other ones are optimally steeped or you could vape it sooner, before the others have reached their peak. Staged steeping might be an excellent solution in this case.

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## ibi

Wow thanks for the advice i always wanted a fruit on the inhale with a menthol exhale @Lingogrey


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## Lingogrey

ibi said:


> Wow thanks for the advice i always wanted a fruit on the inhale with a menthol exhale @Lingogrey
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone 7S using Tapatalk


I quite like refreshing fruits with a hint of menthol and personally I find that the menthol is more noticeable on the exhale anyway (I haven't specifically attempted to achieve this - it's just a general thing I get with menthols). However, I would have no idea if it's possible to almost completely 'separate' the flavors to get almost only fruit on the inhale and almost only menthol on the exhale. Perhaps some more knowledgeable guys would know if it's possible and, if so, how? @rogue zombie , @method1, @Mike , @Ezekiel ?

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## Mike

Not possible in my experience.

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## ibi

I'm going to experiment and see what's the closest I get to achieving the results I have in mind. 


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## milz24

I personally think that certain flavours have strong accents with heat where as others seem to be muted when heated and vise versa 

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## rogue zombie

No idea on the specifics to be honest.

But as I understand it, your taste sensors (so to speak) will relay taste back to your brain according to strength, sweetness versus sour etc. in a certain order.

And as far as I know, there is no way to manipulate it per say, it will go according to the juice.

Like fruit menthol for example - you will receive the sweetness of the fruit before the menthol. UNLESS the menthol completely overpowers the fruit, then the fruit will be a back note. 

I did not know steeping had anything to do with it. I thought it was all about the percentages of what's in your recipe.

But I am speculating based on what I've read or learned.

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## rogue zombie

milz24 said:


> I personally think that certain flavours have strong accents with heat where as others seem to be muted when heated and vise versa
> 
> Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk


This also is true with cooking, so I would see this relevant here. I.E sugars will cook before other food groups .. so I assume the sweeter ingredient in your juice will hit your taste buds first.

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## Silver

Very interesting point you bring up @ibi
Staged steeping to get different accents on the inhale and exhale
That would be really cool

Let us know what you come up with if you try it - and what the results are. Would be interesting


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## Mike

I have tested staged steeping, it doesn't work in that way. 


Temperature control has a big impact on the reaction of aroma molecules, lower temperatures being more conducive to these reactions, whereas higher temperatures will give a more honest representation of a juice.

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## Lord Vetinari

I like this thinking. I seriously doubt one can control when in a hit you do experience a flavor though. In my experience the placement of your tongue while inhaling has the biggest effect on which notes appear first. 
I am going to do a bit of research into this.


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## Mike

Lord Vetinari said:


> I like this thinking. I seriously doubt one can control when in a hit you do experience a flavor though. In my experience the placement of your tongue while inhaling has the biggest effect on which notes appear first.
> I am going to do a bit of research into this.




The tongue has an equal distribution of taste buds which can perceive 5(6-7) different tastes. Flavours however are predominantly perceived by the olfactory system, which is basically your nose. What you're noticing is probably taste bud satiety or "getting used" to a flavour, this usually only affects certain portions of the flavour, as our taste buds do very little work anyway.

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## Lord Vetinari

Mike said:


> The tongue has an equal distribution of taste buds which can perceive 5(6-7) different tastes. Flavours however are predominantly perceived by the olfactory system, which is basically your nose. What you're noticing is probably taste bud satiety or "getting used" to a flavour, this usually only affects certain portions of the flavour, as our taste buds do very little work anyway.



I disagree quite vehemently. This is something I can play with toot for toot so no fatigue or 'satiety' as you say. As you should well know, taste buds do not all perceive the same thing. Side of your tongue for sour as an example. Back of your tongue for bitter. Tip for sweet. 

We all have a different number of sensory receptors in each sensory location. This is the reason super tasters and super smellers, people with perfect pitch and people with 20/20 vision are different people. Not everybody has a highly advanced olfactory system, and this is made up for by cell count in your taste buds. 

Your tongue and nose work together.


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## Mike

@Lord Vetinari can you provide any evidence to this? Specifically relevant journals or studies. The only information I'm aware of that is in line with what you're talking about is the incorrect diagrams taught to children in schools. It's commonly known that the tongue doesn't have any 'zones'.


Also while you're on the topic, I have 20:14 vision, which is better than 20:20. Perfect pitch isn't an indication of sensory acuity, but the ability to identify pitch without reference.

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## ibi

I am going to experiment on this and will get back to you guys 


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## Nightwalker

Mike said:


> @Lord Vetinari can you provide any evidence to this? Specifically relevant journals or studies. The only information I'm aware of that is in line with what you're talking about is the incorrect diagrams taught to children in schools. It's commonly known that the tongue doesn't have any 'zones'.
> 
> 
> Also while you're on the topic, I have 20:14 vision, which is better than 20:20. Perfect pitch isn't an indication of sensory acuity, but the ability to identify pitch without reference.


@ibi not to be rude. But this debated between theese two have really grabbed my attention.


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## ibi

@Nightwalker lol its a bit deep hey


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## Ezekiel

'Lo guys, and thanks for the tag @Lingogrey 

The "tongue map" is indeed a myth, and quite a ridiculous one. Place a pinch of salt on the very tip of your tongue, and you'll immediately taste salt. Primary school teachers try to rationalize this by stating that your saliva can _instantaneously_ transport the molecules to the correct area of the tongue... which is just a tad ridiculous. Here is a decent article explaining some of it:

http://www.livescience.com/7113-tongue-map-tasteless-myth-debunked.html

And yes, as @Mike said, perfect pitch, 20/20 vision, super-taste etc.. is not an indication of better or worse, although we often confuse these as such. For instance, my wife (a professional musician) has perfect pitch, and it drives her crazy when an instrument is tuned to 455 Hz instead of 442 Hz (the natural and open "A"). However, her lowest audible sounds which she can hear is surprisingly loud, which would be classified as bad hearing in any other case. In the same vein, I've met musicians who can pick up amazingly small variations in pitch, _as long as they have a suitable reference frame _(in other words, another pitch).

The same goes for taste/smell, except at a whole more complicated (in terms of chemistry) level. We've been able to manufacture digital eyes (cameras) and digital ears (microphones), but digital noses are still beyond our reach. In fact, there is a whole branch of analytical chemistry dealing with olfactory identification of compounds in conjunction with traditional analytical chemistry techniques, due to the fact that the nose can detect ridiculously low concentrations. Unfortunately, the nose/mouth is also subject to large number of chemical phenomena, which increases in complexity when we start dealing with real world examples. The taste and smell receptors are also subject to a wide range of individual, environmental and racial differentiation, which makes exact comparisons between taste/smell evaluation between individuals as well as between compounds very difficult. The best which can usually be done in these situations is to train your own senses to exact reference frames - which is how wine masters and super-tasters are developed.

The reason I diverge into this is to yet again, highlight the massive differences which individuals can experience when tasting wine, food or e-liquid. And this does apply to 'taste-regions' as well. I definitely have a different experience when I'm vaping directly onto my throat, tongue-tip or tongue side. However, I don't necessarily taste any particular note differently - it is more in terms of different mouth-feel. Similar to wines, where high tannin content tickles the side of your tongue, or depending on the composition, the back of your throat (eg. Shiraz have a very typical tannin profile on the sides of your tongue, which you'll get less often with a Merlot. It is one of the easy cheats in cultivar identification!  It might even be a factor of the nicotine or additives rather than any flavour concentrates.

Anyway, this has been slightly off-topic, so going back to the OP:

Getting different notes in a juice during inhale or exhale is a bit more difficult than one might think. Certain concentrates/compounds already have these attributes - for instance, most of the creams I find developing more on the exhale, where slightly acidic fruits I get more on the inhale. Unfortunately, to change the nature of a specific flavour (in terms of exhale/inhale) will be very difficult to achieve through steeping/flavour composition alone.

The entire point of steeping is to 
a) break bonds between identical flavour molecules, which tends to aggregate somewhat
b) form new bonds between different flavour molecules, thereby suppressing specific flavours whilst developing novel ones
c) form new bonds between flavour molecules and solvent (PG/VG/Nic) molecules
d) allow any necessary chemical process (such as redox reactions or any intramolecular side reactions, usually through UV or heat) to occur, which can still alter the final flavour.

Now, all of these processes (which can tally exponentially, depending on the matrix of compounds in the mix) are subject to specific equilibria. Which means, in principle, that when you add a specific concentrate at a later stage, the entire system (including already developed flavour notes) will trend towards a new equilibrium, and you'll have a final solution more or less the same as if you would've mixed everything together right from the start.

The exception would be if you have equilibria in the solution which are very strongly favoured towards one side of the reaction. In this case, you _might _be able to trap a specific compound in a specific state if you have limited quantities in the initial solution. To give a practical example using a few known flavours (but really, this is not how these flavours work - I just want to illustrate):
Lets say strawberry concentrates can react with creamy concentrates to form a new flavour profile which is more creamy than strawberry - in other words, less tangy. But on the other hand, strawberry can react with other fruity (eg, dragonfruit) concentrates to create a more tarty, tangy taste. If one of these reactions tend to form mostly irreversibly ( in other words, _every_ drop of strawberry concentrate will react with _every_ drop of cream to produce the new and mostly robust flavour), then a staged steeping setup would be possible. Using the same type of principle, if you would be able to 'dope' menthol with a specific compound so that it only releases at high-heat, or it only reacts with saliva, or oxygen, or whatever - then yes, what you want would be possible.

Of course, the type of flavour concentrates used are a) generally undocumented and ill-researched, and b) quite complex - more than one type of molecule in a single concentrate. Therefore, to understand the chemistry of these concentrates and develop a scheme on how to achieve what you want, would be at least a few years' of research, and then only without taking the biology of taste and smell into account. 

However, mixing e-liquid - like cooking - is rooted in chemistry, but it cannot be fully explored at that level. In other words, a certain amount of art is intermixed with experiment. So despite the practical impossibility of trying to figure out how to do what you want to do in a purely scientific manner, it might be possible to achieve something along the lines of what you want - as long as you are willing to do many, many, many experiments, have a good sense of taste/smell, and be willing to give up if you are not lucky enough to stumble on the winning combination. However, I wouldn't bother with staged steeping - I don't think you'll find any luck there.

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## Mike

Hahahah @Ezekiel that is why you're one of my favourite members man. Your wall of text is gonna be tough to tackle on my phone, so I'll edit in an opinion later, but damn dude, good job on the effort!

Done. Agree on all points, I'll have to pick your brain about wines sometime though  btw I've got goodies for you! Gotta meet up this coming week.

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## Lingogrey

Ezekiel said:


> 'Lo guys, and thanks for the tag @Lingogrey
> 
> The "tongue map" is indeed a myth, and quite a ridiculous one. Place a pinch of salt on the very tip of your tongue, and you'll immediately taste salt. Primary school teachers try to rationalize this by stating that your saliva can _instantaneously_ transport the molecules to the correct area of the tongue... which is just a tad ridiculous. Here is a decent article explaining some of it:
> 
> http://www.livescience.com/7113-tongue-map-tasteless-myth-debunked.html
> 
> And yes, as @Mike said, perfect pitch, 20/20 vision, super-taste etc.. is not an indication of better or worse, although we often confuse these as such. For instance, my wife (a professional musician) has perfect pitch, and it drives her crazy when an instrument is tuned to 455 Hz instead of 442 Hz (the natural and open "A"). However, her lowest audible sounds which she can hear is surprisingly loud, which would be classified as bad hearing in any other case. In the same vein, I've met musicians who can pick up amazingly small variations in pitch, _as long as they have a suitable reference frame _(in other words, another pitch).
> 
> The same goes for taste/smell, except at a whole more complicated (in terms of chemistry) level. We've been able to manufacture digital eyes (cameras) and digital ears (microphones), but digital noses are still beyond our reach. In fact, there is a whole branch of analytical chemistry dealing with olfactory identification of compounds in conjunction with traditional analytical chemistry techniques, due to the fact that the nose can detect ridiculously low concentrations. Unfortunately, the nose/mouth is also subject to large number of chemical phenomena, which increases in complexity when we start dealing with real world examples. The taste and smell receptors are also subject to a wide range of individual, environmental and racial differentiation, which makes exact comparisons between taste/smell evaluation between individuals as well as between compounds very difficult. The best which can usually be done in these situations is to train your own senses to exact reference frames - which is how wine masters and super-tasters are developed.
> 
> The reason I diverge into this is to yet again, highlight the massive differences which individuals can experience when tasting wine, food or e-liquid. And this does apply to 'taste-regions' as well. I definitely have a different experience when I'm vaping directly onto my throat, tongue-tip or tongue side. However, I don't necessarily taste any particular note differently - it is more in terms of different mouth-feel. Similar to wines, where high tannin content tickles the side of your tongue, or depending on the composition, the back of your throat (eg. Shiraz have a very typical tannin profile on the sides of your tongue, which you'll get less often with a Merlot. It is one of the easy cheats in cultivar identification!  It might even be a factor of the nicotine or additives rather than any flavour concentrates.
> 
> Anyway, this has been slightly off-topic, so going back to the OP:
> 
> Getting different notes in a juice during inhale or exhale is a bit more difficult than one might think. Certain concentrates/compounds already have these attributes - for instance, most of the creams I find developing more on the exhale, where slightly acidic fruits I get more on the inhale. Unfortunately, to change the nature of a specific flavour (in terms of exhale/inhale) will be very difficult to achieve through steeping/flavour composition alone.
> 
> The entire point of steeping is to
> a) break bonds between identical flavour molecules, which tends to aggregate somewhat
> b) form new bonds between different flavour molecules, thereby suppressing specific flavours whilst developing novel ones
> c) form new bonds between flavour molecules and solvent (PG/VG/Nic) molecules
> d) allow any necessary chemical process (such as redox reactions or any intramolecular side reactions, usually through UV or heat) to occur, which can still alter the final flavour.
> 
> Now, all of these processes (which can tally exponentially, depending on the matrix of compounds in the mix) are subject to specific equilibria. Which means, in principle, that when you add a specific concentrate at a later stage, the entire system (including already developed flavour notes) will trend towards a new equilibrium, and you'll have a final solution more or less the same as if you would've mixed everything together right from the start.
> 
> The exception would be if you have equilibria in the solution which are very strongly favoured towards one side of the reaction. In this case, you _might _be able to trap a specific compound in a specific state if you have limited quantities in the initial solution. To give a practical example using a few known flavours (but really, this is not how these flavours work - I just want to illustrate):
> Lets say strawberry concentrates can react with creamy concentrates to form a new flavour profile which is more creamy than strawberry - in other words, less tangy. But on the other hand, strawberry can react with other fruity (eg, dragonfruit) concentrates to create a more tarty, tangy taste. If one of these reactions tend to form mostly irreversibly ( in other words, _every_ drop of strawberry concentrate will react with _every_ drop of cream to produce the new and mostly robust flavour), then a staged steeping setup would be possible. Using the same type of principle, if you would be able to 'dope' menthol with a specific compound so that it only releases at high-heat, or it only reacts with saliva, or oxygen, or whatever - then yes, what you want would be possible.
> 
> Of course, the type of flavour concentrates used are a) generally undocumented and ill-researched, and b) quite complex - more than one type of molecule in a single concentrate. Therefore, to understand the chemistry of these concentrates and develop a scheme on how to achieve what you want, would be at least a few years' of research, and then only without taking the biology of taste and smell into account.
> 
> However, mixing e-liquid - like cooking - is rooted in chemistry, but it cannot be fully explored at that level. In other words, a certain amount of art is intermixed with experiment. So despite the practical impossibility of trying to figure out how to do what you want to do in a purely scientific manner, it might be possible to achieve something along the lines of what you want - as long as you are willing to do many, many, many experiments, have a good sense of taste/smell, and be willing to give up if you are not lucky enough to stumble on the winning combination. However, I wouldn't bother with staged steeping - I don't think you'll find any luck there.


Thanks @Ezekiel - Awesome super-informative post!

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## Ezekiel

Yeah, my apologies.... I cant help it. Its anyway mostly speculation.... but how awesome would it be if a lab somewhere started giving e-juice mixology the same treatment as cullinary science...

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## Ezekiel

Mike said:


> Hahahah @Ezekiel that is why you're one of my favourite members man. Your wall of text is gonna be tough to tackle on my phone, so I'll edit in an opinion later, but damn dude, good job on the effort!
> 
> Done. Agree on all points, I'll have to pick your brain about wines sometime though  btw I've got goodies for you! Gotta meet up this coming week.


Haha! Thanks! And yeah goodies! Thanks man! 

And thanks @Lingogrey !

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## Nightwalker

Ezekiel said:


> 'Lo guys, and thanks for the tag @Lingogrey
> 
> The "tongue map" is indeed a myth, and quite a ridiculous one. Place a pinch of salt on the very tip of your tongue, and you'll immediately taste salt. Primary school teachers try to rationalize this by stating that your saliva can _instantaneously_ transport the molecules to the correct area of the tongue... which is just a tad ridiculous. Here is a decent article explaining some of it:
> 
> http://www.livescience.com/7113-tongue-map-tasteless-myth-debunked.html
> 
> And yes, as @Mike said, perfect pitch, 20/20 vision, super-taste etc.. is not an indication of better or worse, although we often confuse these as such. For instance, my wife (a professional musician) has perfect pitch, and it drives her crazy when an instrument is tuned to 455 Hz instead of 442 Hz (the natural and open "A"). However, her lowest audible sounds which she can hear is surprisingly loud, which would be classified as bad hearing in any other case. In the same vein, I've met musicians who can pick up amazingly small variations in pitch, _as long as they have a suitable reference frame _(in other words, another pitch).
> 
> The same goes for taste/smell, except at a whole more complicated (in terms of chemistry) level. We've been able to manufacture digital eyes (cameras) and digital ears (microphones), but digital noses are still beyond our reach. In fact, there is a whole branch of analytical chemistry dealing with olfactory identification of compounds in conjunction with traditional analytical chemistry techniques, due to the fact that the nose can detect ridiculously low concentrations. Unfortunately, the nose/mouth is also subject to large number of chemical phenomena, which increases in complexity when we start dealing with real world examples. The taste and smell receptors are also subject to a wide range of individual, environmental and racial differentiation, which makes exact comparisons between taste/smell evaluation between individuals as well as between compounds very difficult. The best which can usually be done in these situations is to train your own senses to exact reference frames - which is how wine masters and super-tasters are developed.
> 
> The reason I diverge into this is to yet again, highlight the massive differences which individuals can experience when tasting wine, food or e-liquid. And this does apply to 'taste-regions' as well. I definitely have a different experience when I'm vaping directly onto my throat, tongue-tip or tongue side. However, I don't necessarily taste any particular note differently - it is more in terms of different mouth-feel. Similar to wines, where high tannin content tickles the side of your tongue, or depending on the composition, the back of your throat (eg. Shiraz have a very typical tannin profile on the sides of your tongue, which you'll get less often with a Merlot. It is one of the easy cheats in cultivar identification!  It might even be a factor of the nicotine or additives rather than any flavour concentrates.
> 
> Anyway, this has been slightly off-topic, so going back to the OP:
> 
> Getting different notes in a juice during inhale or exhale is a bit more difficult than one might think. Certain concentrates/compounds already have these attributes - for instance, most of the creams I find developing more on the exhale, where slightly acidic fruits I get more on the inhale. Unfortunately, to change the nature of a specific flavour (in terms of exhale/inhale) will be very difficult to achieve through steeping/flavour composition alone.
> 
> The entire point of steeping is to
> a) break bonds between identical flavour molecules, which tends to aggregate somewhat
> b) form new bonds between different flavour molecules, thereby suppressing specific flavours whilst developing novel ones
> c) form new bonds between flavour molecules and solvent (PG/VG/Nic) molecules
> d) allow any necessary chemical process (such as redox reactions or any intramolecular side reactions, usually through UV or heat) to occur, which can still alter the final flavour.
> 
> Now, all of these processes (which can tally exponentially, depending on the matrix of compounds in the mix) are subject to specific equilibria. Which means, in principle, that when you add a specific concentrate at a later stage, the entire system (including already developed flavour notes) will trend towards a new equilibrium, and you'll have a final solution more or less the same as if you would've mixed everything together right from the start.
> 
> The exception would be if you have equilibria in the solution which are very strongly favoured towards one side of the reaction. In this case, you _might _be able to trap a specific compound in a specific state if you have limited quantities in the initial solution. To give a practical example using a few known flavours (but really, this is not how these flavours work - I just want to illustrate):
> Lets say strawberry concentrates can react with creamy concentrates to form a new flavour profile which is more creamy than strawberry - in other words, less tangy. But on the other hand, strawberry can react with other fruity (eg, dragonfruit) concentrates to create a more tarty, tangy taste. If one of these reactions tend to form mostly irreversibly ( in other words, _every_ drop of strawberry concentrate will react with _every_ drop of cream to produce the new and mostly robust flavour), then a staged steeping setup would be possible. Using the same type of principle, if you would be able to 'dope' menthol with a specific compound so that it only releases at high-heat, or it only reacts with saliva, or oxygen, or whatever - then yes, what you want would be possible.
> 
> Of course, the type of flavour concentrates used are a) generally undocumented and ill-researched, and b) quite complex - more than one type of molecule in a single concentrate. Therefore, to understand the chemistry of these concentrates and develop a scheme on how to achieve what you want, would be at least a few years' of research, and then only without taking the biology of taste and smell into account.
> 
> However, mixing e-liquid - like cooking - is rooted in chemistry, but it cannot be fully explored at that level. In other words, a certain amount of art is intermixed with experiment. So despite the practical impossibility of trying to figure out how to do what you want to do in a purely scientific manner, it might be possible to achieve something along the lines of what you want - as long as you are willing to do many, many, many experiments, have a good sense of taste/smell, and be willing to give up if you are not lucky enough to stumble on the winning combination. However, I wouldn't bother with staged steeping - I don't think you'll find any luck there.


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## Silver

Ezekiel said:


> 'Lo guys, and thanks for the tag @Lingogrey
> 
> The "tongue map" is indeed a myth, and quite a ridiculous one. Place a pinch of salt on the very tip of your tongue, and you'll immediately taste salt. Primary school teachers try to rationalize this by stating that your saliva can _instantaneously_ transport the molecules to the correct area of the tongue... which is just a tad ridiculous. Here is a decent article explaining some of it:
> 
> http://www.livescience.com/7113-tongue-map-tasteless-myth-debunked.html
> 
> And yes, as @Mike said, perfect pitch, 20/20 vision, super-taste etc.. is not an indication of better or worse, although we often confuse these as such. For instance, my wife (a professional musician) has perfect pitch, and it drives her crazy when an instrument is tuned to 455 Hz instead of 442 Hz (the natural and open "A"). However, her lowest audible sounds which she can hear is surprisingly loud, which would be classified as bad hearing in any other case. In the same vein, I've met musicians who can pick up amazingly small variations in pitch, _as long as they have a suitable reference frame _(in other words, another pitch).
> 
> The same goes for taste/smell, except at a whole more complicated (in terms of chemistry) level. We've been able to manufacture digital eyes (cameras) and digital ears (microphones), but digital noses are still beyond our reach. In fact, there is a whole branch of analytical chemistry dealing with olfactory identification of compounds in conjunction with traditional analytical chemistry techniques, due to the fact that the nose can detect ridiculously low concentrations. Unfortunately, the nose/mouth is also subject to large number of chemical phenomena, which increases in complexity when we start dealing with real world examples. The taste and smell receptors are also subject to a wide range of individual, environmental and racial differentiation, which makes exact comparisons between taste/smell evaluation between individuals as well as between compounds very difficult. The best which can usually be done in these situations is to train your own senses to exact reference frames - which is how wine masters and super-tasters are developed.
> 
> The reason I diverge into this is to yet again, highlight the massive differences which individuals can experience when tasting wine, food or e-liquid. And this does apply to 'taste-regions' as well. I definitely have a different experience when I'm vaping directly onto my throat, tongue-tip or tongue side. However, I don't necessarily taste any particular note differently - it is more in terms of different mouth-feel. Similar to wines, where high tannin content tickles the side of your tongue, or depending on the composition, the back of your throat (eg. Shiraz have a very typical tannin profile on the sides of your tongue, which you'll get less often with a Merlot. It is one of the easy cheats in cultivar identification!  It might even be a factor of the nicotine or additives rather than any flavour concentrates.
> 
> Anyway, this has been slightly off-topic, so going back to the OP:
> 
> Getting different notes in a juice during inhale or exhale is a bit more difficult than one might think. Certain concentrates/compounds already have these attributes - for instance, most of the creams I find developing more on the exhale, where slightly acidic fruits I get more on the inhale. Unfortunately, to change the nature of a specific flavour (in terms of exhale/inhale) will be very difficult to achieve through steeping/flavour composition alone.
> 
> The entire point of steeping is to
> a) break bonds between identical flavour molecules, which tends to aggregate somewhat
> b) form new bonds between different flavour molecules, thereby suppressing specific flavours whilst developing novel ones
> c) form new bonds between flavour molecules and solvent (PG/VG/Nic) molecules
> d) allow any necessary chemical process (such as redox reactions or any intramolecular side reactions, usually through UV or heat) to occur, which can still alter the final flavour.
> 
> Now, all of these processes (which can tally exponentially, depending on the matrix of compounds in the mix) are subject to specific equilibria. Which means, in principle, that when you add a specific concentrate at a later stage, the entire system (including already developed flavour notes) will trend towards a new equilibrium, and you'll have a final solution more or less the same as if you would've mixed everything together right from the start.
> 
> The exception would be if you have equilibria in the solution which are very strongly favoured towards one side of the reaction. In this case, you _might _be able to trap a specific compound in a specific state if you have limited quantities in the initial solution. To give a practical example using a few known flavours (but really, this is not how these flavours work - I just want to illustrate):
> Lets say strawberry concentrates can react with creamy concentrates to form a new flavour profile which is more creamy than strawberry - in other words, less tangy. But on the other hand, strawberry can react with other fruity (eg, dragonfruit) concentrates to create a more tarty, tangy taste. If one of these reactions tend to form mostly irreversibly ( in other words, _every_ drop of strawberry concentrate will react with _every_ drop of cream to produce the new and mostly robust flavour), then a staged steeping setup would be possible. Using the same type of principle, if you would be able to 'dope' menthol with a specific compound so that it only releases at high-heat, or it only reacts with saliva, or oxygen, or whatever - then yes, what you want would be possible.
> 
> Of course, the type of flavour concentrates used are a) generally undocumented and ill-researched, and b) quite complex - more than one type of molecule in a single concentrate. Therefore, to understand the chemistry of these concentrates and develop a scheme on how to achieve what you want, would be at least a few years' of research, and then only without taking the biology of taste and smell into account.
> 
> However, mixing e-liquid - like cooking - is rooted in chemistry, but it cannot be fully explored at that level. In other words, a certain amount of art is intermixed with experiment. So despite the practical impossibility of trying to figure out how to do what you want to do in a purely scientific manner, it might be possible to achieve something along the lines of what you want - as long as you are willing to do many, many, many experiments, have a good sense of taste/smell, and be willing to give up if you are not lucky enough to stumble on the winning combination. However, I wouldn't bother with staged steeping - I don't think you'll find any luck there.



That was an awesome post @Ezekiel 
Loved reading it

Thanks - 
most interesting and it gives me more appreciation for the complexities involved in the science behind something many of us take for granted. 

I got quite excited when you started talking about menthol and I reached for my Strawberry Ice. Lol.

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## rogue zombie

So the map of the tongue theory has been debunked 

What else did they lie to me about


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## ibi

Thanks for the useful information and for your knowledge @Ezekiel


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## DarkSide

Ezekiel said:


> 'Lo guys, and thanks for the tag @Lingogrey
> 
> The "tongue map" is indeed a myth, and quite a ridiculous one. Place a pinch of salt on the very tip of your tongue, and you'll immediately taste salt. Primary school teachers try to rationalize this by stating that your saliva can _instantaneously_ transport the molecules to the correct area of the tongue... which is just a tad ridiculous. Here is a decent article explaining some of it:
> 
> http://www.livescience.com/7113-tongue-map-tasteless-myth-debunked.html
> 
> And yes, as @Mike said, perfect pitch, 20/20 vision, super-taste etc.. is not an indication of better or worse, although we often confuse these as such. For instance, my wife (a professional musician) has perfect pitch, and it drives her crazy when an instrument is tuned to 455 Hz instead of 442 Hz (the natural and open "A"). However, her lowest audible sounds which she can hear is surprisingly loud, which would be classified as bad hearing in any other case. In the same vein, I've met musicians who can pick up amazingly small variations in pitch, _as long as they have a suitable reference frame _(in other words, another pitch).
> 
> The same goes for taste/smell, except at a whole more complicated (in terms of chemistry) level. We've been able to manufacture digital eyes (cameras) and digital ears (microphones), but digital noses are still beyond our reach. In fact, there is a whole branch of analytical chemistry dealing with olfactory identification of compounds in conjunction with traditional analytical chemistry techniques, due to the fact that the nose can detect ridiculously low concentrations. Unfortunately, the nose/mouth is also subject to large number of chemical phenomena, which increases in complexity when we start dealing with real world examples. The taste and smell receptors are also subject to a wide range of individual, environmental and racial differentiation, which makes exact comparisons between taste/smell evaluation between individuals as well as between compounds very difficult. The best which can usually be done in these situations is to train your own senses to exact reference frames - which is how wine masters and super-tasters are developed.
> 
> The reason I diverge into this is to yet again, highlight the massive differences which individuals can experience when tasting wine, food or e-liquid. And this does apply to 'taste-regions' as well. I definitely have a different experience when I'm vaping directly onto my throat, tongue-tip or tongue side. However, I don't necessarily taste any particular note differently - it is more in terms of different mouth-feel. Similar to wines, where high tannin content tickles the side of your tongue, or depending on the composition, the back of your throat (eg. Shiraz have a very typical tannin profile on the sides of your tongue, which you'll get less often with a Merlot. It is one of the easy cheats in cultivar identification!  It might even be a factor of the nicotine or additives rather than any flavour concentrates.
> 
> Anyway, this has been slightly off-topic, so going back to the OP:
> 
> Getting different notes in a juice during inhale or exhale is a bit more difficult than one might think. Certain concentrates/compounds already have these attributes - for instance, most of the creams I find developing more on the exhale, where slightly acidic fruits I get more on the inhale. Unfortunately, to change the nature of a specific flavour (in terms of exhale/inhale) will be very difficult to achieve through steeping/flavour composition alone.
> 
> The entire point of steeping is to
> a) break bonds between identical flavour molecules, which tends to aggregate somewhat
> b) form new bonds between different flavour molecules, thereby suppressing specific flavours whilst developing novel ones
> c) form new bonds between flavour molecules and solvent (PG/VG/Nic) molecules
> d) allow any necessary chemical process (such as redox reactions or any intramolecular side reactions, usually through UV or heat) to occur, which can still alter the final flavour.
> 
> Now, all of these processes (which can tally exponentially, depending on the matrix of compounds in the mix) are subject to specific equilibria. Which means, in principle, that when you add a specific concentrate at a later stage, the entire system (including already developed flavour notes) will trend towards a new equilibrium, and you'll have a final solution more or less the same as if you would've mixed everything together right from the start.
> 
> The exception would be if you have equilibria in the solution which are very strongly favoured towards one side of the reaction. In this case, you _might _be able to trap a specific compound in a specific state if you have limited quantities in the initial solution. To give a practical example using a few known flavours (but really, this is not how these flavours work - I just want to illustrate):
> Lets say strawberry concentrates can react with creamy concentrates to form a new flavour profile which is more creamy than strawberry - in other words, less tangy. But on the other hand, strawberry can react with other fruity (eg, dragonfruit) concentrates to create a more tarty, tangy taste. If one of these reactions tend to form mostly irreversibly ( in other words, _every_ drop of strawberry concentrate will react with _every_ drop of cream to produce the new and mostly robust flavour), then a staged steeping setup would be possible. Using the same type of principle, if you would be able to 'dope' menthol with a specific compound so that it only releases at high-heat, or it only reacts with saliva, or oxygen, or whatever - then yes, what you want would be possible.
> 
> Of course, the type of flavour concentrates used are a) generally undocumented and ill-researched, and b) quite complex - more than one type of molecule in a single concentrate. Therefore, to understand the chemistry of these concentrates and develop a scheme on how to achieve what you want, would be at least a few years' of research, and then only without taking the biology of taste and smell into account.
> 
> However, mixing e-liquid - like cooking - is rooted in chemistry, but it cannot be fully explored at that level. In other words, a certain amount of art is intermixed with experiment. So despite the practical impossibility of trying to figure out how to do what you want to do in a purely scientific manner, it might be possible to achieve something along the lines of what you want - as long as you are willing to do many, many, many experiments, have a good sense of taste/smell, and be willing to give up if you are not lucky enough to stumble on the winning combination. However, I wouldn't bother with staged steeping - I don't think you'll find any luck there.


Going to read this thesis at least twice to try and understand what was stated so eloquently by the esteemed member!!!


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## Ernest

Got to this thread late, but really enjoyed the post by @Ezekiel . Very informative as usual.
The way I see it. When you cook a stew, you do not add the potatoes and carrots when adding the meat, (at least I hope you don't) you add them at different times through the cooking process. The end result is a stew and you can taste all the different ingredients in your stew with one mouth full, but if you want to taste your potatoes, carrots and meats separately you cook them separately and eat them separately. They can still be on the same plate, but once they in the same vape, you've got a stew.

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