“Premium e-liquid” is perhaps one of the most overused terms in the entire history of the vaping industry. Are you really having an experience that qualifies as a premium vape? The manufacturer of your e-liquid would certainly like you to think so.

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The fact that the term “premium” is so overused in the e-liquid industry might make a little more sense when you consider the term’s origin. The e-cigarette is a Chinese invention. Most vaping hardware is still made in China, and there was a time when all of the world’s vape juice came from China as well.

Many of the Chinese companies that produced e-liquid were happy to let companies in America and elsewhere in the world buy their vape juice and resell it under their own brands. At the same time, some companies were beginning to produce their own e-liquid domestically. Since it wasn’t always easy to tell who was selling Chinese-made e-liquid and who wasn’t, the companies that sourced their products domestically often used the term “premium e-liquid” to help set their products apart.

That, however, was more than 10 years ago. Today, almost every company in the vaping industry now manufactures its e-liquid domestically – but after all these years, the word “premium” still appears prominently in the marketing language on just about every e-liquid manufacturer’s website. It’s almost as if the word doesn’t mean anything anymore.

Well, I propose that the vaping community should take term “premium e-liquid back” and make it actually mean something.

So, what does the term “premium e-liquid” actually mean – or what should it mean? Here’s what I think.

Premium E-Liquid Is All About the Flavor

Most e-liquid tastes good. There are two different ways, though, to achieve the goal of creating a good-tasting e-liquid. One of those ways is significantly more difficult than the other.

One way to develop a tasty e-liquid involves significant research, development, trial and error. You imagine a flavor profile in your mind, and then you go about sourcing the various elements of that flavor profile from as many flavor providers as you can find.

Even if your proposed flavor profile is a simple one – strawberries and cream, for example – there are lots of flavor houses out there making strawberry and cream flavors. If you want your e-liquid to be as good as it can be, you’ll want to get them all.

Next, you’ll want to test those flavors in every combination and proportion possible. If you have six strawberry flavors and six cream flavors, that’s a great many possible combinations and ratios. You may even find that the perfect strawberry flavor for your e-liquid isn’t a single company’s product but is rather a blend of several products. The more complex your desired flavor profile is, the longer the development process might take.

What’s the benefit of all that work? The first benefit is that an e-liquid born out of a sense of true perfectionism tastes like nothing else on the market. The second benefit is that a true premium e-liquid tastes great with minimal added sucralose – or even no sucralose at all. Therefore, using premium e-liquid often leads to longer-lasting coils.

The alternative, of course, is to throw any strawberry flavor and any cream flavor into a bottle and add tons of sucralose. That e-liquid would taste good as well – but it would also taste like every other company’s strawberries-and-cream e-liquid. The sucralose would also kill your coils.

It has to be said that producing a premium e-liquid almost always costs more than producing an e-liquid that has just a couple of flavors along with a lot of sucralose. The higher production costs are evident in the retail price. However, paying a little more for an e-liquid on the front end can save you an enormous amount of money on the back end when you no longer have to replace your coils every couple of days. My usual e-liquid has no sucralose. My coils last for weeks at a time. Can you say the same thing about your vape juice?

Premium E-Liquid Doesn’t Need Loud Packaging or Marketing Language

I find that the true premium e-liquid brands often have some of the most understated visual designs in the vaping industry. Premium e-liquid is classy rather than loud. Premium e-liquid doesn’t need cartoon character mascots, and it doesn’t need to copy the visual cues of popular snack, drink or cereal brands. That philosophy carries over to the brand’s website, where you’ll find an absence of hype-filled language and plugs from social media influencers. A true premium e-liquid brand doesn’t need any of those marketing tricks because it lets the product speak for itself.

Premium E-Liquid Is Completely Consistent From Batch to Batch

One thing that you can always count on with a premium e-liquid is a product that’s completely consistent from bottle to bottle, batch to batch, year to year. That’s because, long ago, the best vape juice brands invested their earnings heavily into building the world’s top e-liquid production facilities. They’re the brands that produce their products in true pharmaceutical-grade clean room environments using equipment that automates mixing and production from start to finish. They’re the brands that produce their nicotine-free e-liquid on separate lines to ensure that there’s no chance of contamination. Perfect product consistency is simply understood when you buy premium e-liquid.

Premium E-Liquid Always Comes in Top-Quality Packaging

The last thing that separates the premium e-liquid brands from the rest of the pack is a real focus on quality packaging. In the past, the premium e-liquid brands always packaged their products in cobalt or amber glass bottles to ensure that nothing could interact with the flavors within. Today, glass bottles aren’t very common because most consumers prefer plastic for its ease of use. Nevertheless, if a vape juice company is still using glass bottles, it’s a sure sign that they’re extremely confident about the quality of their flavors. For the vape juice companies that have transitioned to plastic bottles – and most of them have done that at this point – you can still be certain that the premium brands are using the best plastic bottles on the market.