Why does my e-liquid taste weak? Eight causes and their fixes

Before changing anything, try a fresh coil or pod with the same liquid. This one test splits the possible causes in half. If the flavour comes roaring back, your old coil was the issue. If it still tastes weak, the cause is the liquid, your settings or your sense of smell.

Keep a spare coil in the drawer for exactly this reason. Coils are cheap compared with throwing away a bottle you have decided is bad when it was actually perfectly fine. Replacement coils and pods for most kits are in coils and pods.

Weak flavour has a surprisingly small number of causes. We have listed the eight we hear about most often, roughly in order of how common they are, along with the fix for each. Most are free to sort out.

Work down the list rather than jumping to the bottom. Somebody convinced their liquid is faulty is usually running a two-week-old coil with the airflow wide open, and both of those things are fixed in under a minute. Only once those are ruled out is it worth suspecting the bottle itself.

If your kit has adjustable wattage, check it against the range printed on the coil. Running at the very bottom of that range produces cooler, thinner vapour with less flavour. Step up a watt or two at a time until the taste peaks, then stop before it turns harsh.

Airflow matters just as much. More air means more dilution, so a wide-open airflow ring can make a rich liquid taste watery. Closing it slightly concentrates the vapour. The calculator below shows how voltage and resistance translate into watts if your device reports those numbers instead.

Sometimes the bottle really is the cause. A 70/30 shortfill in a small 1.0 ohm coil cannot wick fast enough, so the coil runs slightly dry and flavour fades. Switching to a 50/50 version of the same flavour usually fixes it.

Over-diluting is another classic. Every nic shot is unflavoured, so three shots in a 50ml leaves the flavour noticeably thinner. Old liquid loses flavour too, especially if stored somewhere bright or warm. And heavily iced liquids can taste of cold rather than fruit; a non-ice version may give you more flavour. Our guide to shortfill maths shows how much flavour each extra shot costs.

If every liquid tastes flat, the most likely cause is vaper's tongue: your sense of smell has tuned out a flavour you vape constantly. A cold or blocked nose has the same effect, because most flavour comes from smell.

Drink more water, since PG and VG both draw moisture and a dry mouth tastes less. Rotate between two or three different flavour families. If your sense of smell has changed for food and everything else too, and it lasts more than a couple of weeks, mention it to a pharmacist or GP. Our full guide to vaper's tongue has more fixes.

Your usual mango liquid suddenly tastes like vaguely sweet air. You have been on the same coil for twelve days, and you also bought a new bottle of the same flavour from the same brand last week. Before you complain about a bad batch, you want to be sure.

What is the smartest first step? Pick the option that rules out the most likely cause most cheaply. Remember that a coil past the one-week mark is the number one reason flavour fades, and that a new bottle of the same flavour is far less likely to be the problem than hardware that has been working hard for nearly a fortnight.