Nature's Flavors? Information needed!

[Nikhil]

So I was checking out suppliers that I don't have already listed for flavorings and I came across this huge one called Nature's Flavors. They have an Organic Flavor Extracts section with over 60 seemingly vapable flavors (only the Cranberry and Cola list gum acacia as an ingredient) - just water, alcohol, and natural/artificial flavors. They have another section with more flavors that could be vaped. I can imagine that a small size flavor retailer like Capella's flavor drops are basically these, but repackaged. This place is obviously more of a wholesaler, with their prices very high at small amounts with huge savings at each increment higher. In fact, their image for their Caramel flavor is the same as Capella's image. If a place like Capella is buying it by the gallon, they're making about $4.75 in profit (selling it at $5.95) on each 1 oz. bottle they sell. Pretty crazy when you think about it. Anyone know anything about this?

 

[garyd]

Interesting, definately for someone making large quantities. That's quite a profit margin also, may be looking into for someone that is thinking about starting their own buisness.

 

[Switched]

Thanks for the post PV, I have bookmarked it as I have been sourcing alternates as well. I don't mind folks making a living, but not of the sweat off my back. I have seen markups anywhere from 400-800%.

 

[Kurt]

So I was checking out suppliers that I don't have already listed for flavorings and I came across this huge one called Nature's Flavors. They have an Organic Flavor Extracts section with over 60 seemingly vapable flavors (only the Cranberry and Cola list gum acacia as an ingredient) - just water, alcohol, and natural/artificial flavors. They have another section with more flavors that could be vaped. I can imagine that a small size flavor retailer like Capella's flavor drops are basically these, but repackaged. This place is obviously more of a wholesaler, with their prices very high at small amounts with huge savings at each increment higher. In fact, their image for their Caramel flavor is the same as Capella's image. If a place like Capella is buying it by the gallon, they're making about $4.75 in profit (selling it at $5.95) on each 1 oz. bottle they sell. Pretty crazy when you think about it. Anyone know anything about this?

IMHO, organic when thinking about a vapable flavor is moot. If by natural flavor they mean a concentrated extract of a plant, with macromolecules as part of the concentrate, then this is not vapable. A single low bp compound, such as a flavor compound (banana isoamyl acetate), is by definition an organic compound, since it has carbons in it, but it is not organic in terms of growing of a plant without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. Its just a compound. We do not want to vape big biomolecules, such as proteins or polysaccarides or lipids, which may be part of a "natural flavor", if it is a whole-food concentrate, which I suspect these are, and are for cooking not vaping. For example, I could use orange juice concentrate to flavor a cake, and it could be from organic oranges, but I would not want to vape it...too much big stuff in it.

If they are simple compounds, like a Lorann flavor generally is, then they are vapable, but will not be any different than a Lorann or Capella. So if someone can find out what they mean by "natural" or "organic" flavor, this will help.

 

[Nikhil]

Their site does say this:

The only solvents that we use in the development of organic and natural flavors are filtered RO water and organic alcohol. If we can’t extract the ingredients thru these methods then we don't do it.

Steam distillation is another method we employee. Fortunately this is in most cases the only methods needed to manufacture these unique flavor concentrates and extracts. A simple and common process for making vanilla extract is to take organic vanilla beans and grind them to a pulp then allow them to soak and extract in an organic alcohol/water mixture for a period of time sometimes for up to several months. Normally for a standard organic vanilla extract you would extract for a period of not less than fourteen days. That's how long Nature’s flavors allows its organic vanilla extract to age and extract. This method is common for our citrus and other fruit flavor extracts as well. There are usually some filtering and clarifying techniques that follow the extraction process before being bottled or packaged.

This seems to be the same way many forum members make their own vanilla, and I have heard of a few people vaping these extracts successfully. It's true that artificial flavors will be more pure in the sense they won't have any wild card biomolecules you mention, but I know some flavoring suppliers like Faerie's Finest do use organic flavors and they are safe to vape.

I don't think even the suppliers know all the molecules in their extracts, so I'm not sure how one would go about testing it other than trial and error. I doubt any of them would vaporize into anything harmful in the concentrations they are in, would they? Or could they react with some existing residue on the atomizer?

 

[Kurt]

Their site does say this:



This seems to be the same way many forum members make their own vanilla, and I have heard of a few people vaping these extracts successfully. It's true that artificial flavors will be more pure in the sense they won't have any wild card biomolecules you mention, but I know some flavoring suppliers like Faerie's Finest do use organic flavors and they are safe to vape.

I don't think even the suppliers know all the molecules in their extracts, so I'm not sure how one would go about testing it other than trial and error. I doubt any of them would vaporize into anything harmful in the concentrations they are in, would they? Or could they react with some existing residue on the atomizer?

Thanks for finding this, PV! What you describe is an alcohol extraction. With vanilla there is not a lot in the bean that will come out other than vanallin and vanallin derivatives, which depend on the type of vanilla, but with other foods, like fruits, much more will come out. I wasn't really thinking about the safety here, but that the big molecules will just gunk up the atty. Other things that come out with alcohol are fruit/leaf chlorophyls and other natural coloring compounds, which are not a good idea to vape. Dyes can decompose with atty heat.

And the flavor companies I know of all know the compounds they use. That is their business: flavor chemistry. Perfumers Apprentice even sells individual flavor compounds, which could be an interesting thing to look into.

 

[NatureBoy]

To update this thread, I ordered 3 different flavors and they don't appear to be suitable for vaping.

Don't waste your money or time with this one, it's not the right stuff.

 

[Nikhil]

I think the ones you bought list Organic Gum Acacia or Gum Arabic as an ingredient, which is not good for vaping. The flavor concentrates are mostly not vapable... most of the flavor extracts and some of the flavor oils for coffee and tea are fine. For example, if you search for Chai you get these 16 results: Nature's Flavors : Advanced Search Results

The 3rd one and the 3rd to last one list only Glycerine, Natural Flavor, and Alcohol as ingredients, which should be fine. The rest are not.

 

[NatureBoy]

That sucks. Guess I ordered the wrong ones then....

Though, anything that's an oil I don't imagine is suitable to use either.

 

[garyd]

Gum arabic is used in the printing industry for removing printer's ink and preserving the printing surface of plates, I would definately not vape this and don't understand how they can call this a flavor.

 

[Nikhil]

Gum arabic IS gum acacia and they are both used in a lot of foods and are perfectly safe to eat. They are just terrible for atomizers.

 

[Nikhil]

So I was looking at this company again and I found some interesting stuff. They actually do mention vaping on this page: Nature's Flavors : * Natures Flavors Sample Pack of Natural Flavoring System for Coffee & Tea

There are also 2 pages which used to mention vaping that were luckily cache'd by Google on May 8th. They say this:

"For use as an ingredient in Vaping products like e-liquid, we recommend using our Coffee and Tea Flavoring Oils as they are ideally suited for that application."
"In the case of Vaping these flavors, the alcohol will provide a very light and rich throat hit."

I have ordered Chocolate Fudge, Japanese Plum, Gingerbread, and Danish Pastry from the Coffee and Tea section.

 

[Orion]

ooOOOoo..Chocolate fudge! I would definitely love to know how this taste/vapes.

If they turn out to be great (I don't see an obvious to me reason why not) I might have to place an order for chocolate and throw in some shaved ice syrup for the kids. And they sell pipettes & VG!

I think I need to go eat lunch, I'm drooling over generic pictures of food

 

[laborer75]

Please keep us informed PureVapor. Would really like to know how them flavors work out for you. Thanks for this thread!!!

 

[Nikhil]

I talked to one of the suppliers here who uses them for PG-Free liquids and she said their flavors are kind of hit and miss, some are kind of hard to get right for vaping. But it would seem they are definitely vapable.

 

[redgirl]

Just curious, Pure, how did the flavors you order turn out?

 

[Nikhil]

Oh yeah, forgot about this thread. Been busy, but tested 3 of the 4 I bought.

Danish Pastry - amazing flavor, tastes just like a danish with lots of icing. A little light, present at 10% but needs up to 20% alone.

Chocolate Fudge - on par with PA's dark chocolate in flavor, again a little light but good.

Gingerbread - NOT bready, just spicy and gingery. Extremely strong, 1 drop in 10ml is probably enough unless you hardcore love ginger, in which case you'll love it.

Japanese Plum - smells good, haven't used it yet.

 

[redgirl]

Oh yeah, forgot about this thread. Been busy, but tested 3 of the 4 I bought.

Danish Pastry - amazing flavor, tastes just like a danish with lots of icing. A little light, present at 10% but needs up to 20% alone.

Chocolate Fudge - on par with PA's dark chocolate in flavor, again a little light but good.

Gingerbread - NOT bready, just spicy and gingery. Extremely strong, 1 drop in 10ml is probably enough unless you hardcore love ginger, in which case you'll love it.

Japanese Plum - smells good, haven't used it yet.

So what are they, the extracts or the coffee & tea flavors? Have you tried Capella's cinnamon danish swirl? It's one of my favorites, just wondering how this danish pastry stacks up to it.

 

[Nikhil]

Haven't tried it, but there isn't any cinnamon in the NF Danish Pastry. I don't know what else to say about it, but I sent GoodDog some of the Danish Pastry to try so she might be able to relate better since she hordes those creamy flavors.

They are the Coffee & Tea flavorings, you can get a customizable sampler here: Nature's Flavors : * Natures Flavors Sample Pack of Natural Coffee & Tea Flavoring Systems

 

[GoodDog]

The Danish Pastry is a very good pastry flavor that I think will go well with peach, blueberry or any of the fruits. It may have a tiny bit of cinnamon but not anything that would overpower the fruits in a fruit danish recipe. I'm looking forward to making a mixed berry pastry using Faeries Finest and this.