Kung Fruits | A fruit range read by a dessert palate

A caramel is built, a fruit is chosen. Between those two approaches lies a common misunderstanding when a fan of bakery blends opens a bottle of Kung Fruits. The names in the range say nothing about the fruit, retailers do not always agree on how cool each one is, and a coil that has just run a praline still has something to say. Before moving from a dessert to a peach or a lychee, it helps to know what this range actually puts in the bottle.

Kung Fruits, a single fruit where dessert blends stack layers

A Kung Fruits e liquid is a single-flavour fruit recipe made in France by Cloud Vapor, on a 50/50 base of propylene glycol and vegetable glycerine. Each bottle is built around one fruit, with no cream, no pastry and no caramel. For a palate used to desserts, it is not a lighter dessert but a different register altogether.

The gentlest entry points are the fleshy fruits in the range, peach, mango, lychee and longan. The sharp fruits and the watery ones take more getting used to. Unless stated otherwise, the product details in this article come from the product pages Cloud Vapor publishes on its own site.

Single flavour versus layered recipe, two ways to build a taste

The gap between a fruit from this range and a dessert blend lies less in the flavouring than in how the recipe is put together. Two constructions stand apart, and they do not taste the same way.

What a dessert recipe stacks up

A dessert blend works in layers. A biscuit base, a milky note, a caramel, sometimes a hazelnut, each arrives at its own moment in the puff. We broke down that kind of stacking in our piece on La Chose and its four pastry layers. The pleasure comes from the balance between notes that answer one another.

What a single flavour leaves on its own

A single-flavour liquid does the opposite. There is no base and no topping, only the fruit, from the start of the puff to the end. A dessert palate will often look for a roundness that is not there. It makes more sense to pick the fruit for its flesh than for the memory of a tart.

The Kung Fruits flavours sorted for a dessert palate

The maker files every reference under “fruity”, with no sweetness or cooling scale. The grouping below is therefore our reading of the stated fruit, and the pastry column shows where that fruit turns up in desserts, not a taste attributed to the liquid.

Name	Stated fruit	Character of the fruit	The fruit in pastry
Tsuri	Peach	Fleshy, sweet	Peach Melba, thin tart
Mango	Mango	Fleshy, sweet	Tropical entremets
Reishi	Lychee	Fleshy, floral	Lychee and rose macaron
Ryugan	Longan	Fleshy, musky	Rare in European pastry
Ishigo	Strawberry	Red, sweet and sharp	Strawberry gateau
Sakuran	Cherry	Red, sweet	Clafoutis
Akaïmi	Raspberry	Red, sharp	Raspberry tart
Kashi	Blackcurrant	Dark, tart	Blackcurrant bavarois
Painappu	Pineapple	Tropical, sharp	Roast pineapple
Remon	Lemon	Citrus, tart	Lemon tart
Meron	Melon	Watery fruit	Seldom in desserts
Suika	Watermelon	Watery fruit	Seldom in desserts
Pitaya	Dragon fruit	Subtle	Seldom in desserts
Aroe	Aloe vera	Green, plant-like	Absent from pastry

The melon given for Meron rests on two matching retailer listings, which also add a cactus note to the lemon the maker states for Remon.

Fleshy fruits, the softest way in

Tsuri, Mango, Reishi and Ryugan carry fruits with dense, sweet flesh. They come closest to what a dessert lover already knows, a poached peach, a ripe mango. Ryugan, the longan, adds a less familiar musky note, close to lychee.

Sharp fruits and watery fruits

Akaïmi, Kashi, Remon and Painappu lean on acidity. A dessert palate may find it lively, without the cream that softens it in a pudding. Meron and Suika, melon and watermelon, are watery fruits. Their taste is light, with none of the baked or toasted notes that give a dessert blend its structure.

Aroe and Pitaya, the two outsiders

Aroe is not a fruit but a plant, aloe vera, even though the maker files it among its fruity recipes. Pitaya, the dragon fruit, is the most discreet of the range. These two sit furthest from a pastry register.

Cooling, what the maker and the retailers say

The range overview talks about a “wind of freshness”. The product pages, for their part, list a composition limited to propylene glycol, vegetable glycerine and flavourings, with no cooling agent declared.

Some retailers go further. One describes Akaïmi with a “cool effect” and Kuberi, the blackberry, with an “icy effect”. Those claims do not appear on the maker’s pages. For a dessert vaper used to warm, rounded notes, the nuance matters. Where a shop and the maker disagree, the maker’s page is the one to trust. Anyone after a real chill will look instead at Kung Freeze, which the same house presents as its cool fruit range.

Moving from a dessert blend to Kung Fruits on the same coil

This is the most practical trap for readers of this site. A single fruit hides nothing, and a coil that has been heating sweet recipes makes itself known from the first few puffs.

Why the caramel stays on the wick

Dessert recipes are loaded with heavy flavourings, caramel, praline, biscuit, sometimes a sweetener. Part of those compounds settles on the cotton with every puff. On a dessert blend that residue goes unnoticed for a while, since it resembles the recipe. Under a lychee or a peach it comes through as a stray burnt or sugary note.

Starting again from a clean coil

The simplest rule is to fit a fresh coil, or to keep a tank just for fruit. Rinsing the tank is not enough, because the taste is lodged in the wick. The care steps set out in our piece on Le Coq Qui Vape and looking after your coil apply in this direction too. The 50/50 ratio of the range wicks well in common coils, and the maker states that it suits every tank on the market. In the UK, a refillable tank holds 2 ml at most.

Bottle sizes and nicotine strengths on the Kung Fruits pages

The range comes in three sizes, and the choice depends mostly on how you take your nicotine. Individual product pages say more than the range overview.

The 10 ml bottle is the only one sold with nicotine. In the UK, a nicotine e liquid comes in bottles of 10 ml at most and at no more than 20 mg/ml. The range overview lists 3, 6 and 12 mg/ml. The 10 ml pages for Mango, Ryugan, Ishigo, Reishi, Aroe and Remon also offer 18 mg/ml, while the Kashi page stops at 12 mg/ml. Aroe and Remon also come as nicotine salts, at 10 and 20 mg/ml.

The 50 ml and 100 ml bottles are nicotine-free shortfills. The 50 ml is designed to take a 10 ml nicotine shot. With a shot at 20 mg/ml, that gives 60 ml at about 3.3 mg/ml. The 100 ml pages we read do not state how much shot they are designed to take.

FAQ

Five practical questions about the range, beyond choosing a fruit.

Who makes Kung Fruits?

Cloud Vapor, a French manufacturer with several e liquid ranges. Kung Fruits is its line of single-flavour fruit recipes, separate from Kung Freeze, which is dedicated to cool fruit blends.

Is Aroe a fruit?

No, it is aloe vera, a plant. The maker still files it in its fruity category. Its profile therefore reads as more green than sweet, the opposite of the fleshy fruits in the range.

Should a Kung Fruits bottle be shaken before vaping?

Yes for the larger sizes. The 50 ml bottles are shortfills, meant to be topped up with a nicotine shot and then shaken to blend it into the liquid. The product page also advises shaking the bottle well before use.

Are there Kung Fruits concentrates for DIY?

Yes. The Akaïmi page points to a concentrate version, intended for mixing at home, and the maker sorts its concentrates into 10 ml and 30 ml bottles. The mixing rate is then read on the concentrate’s own page, not on the ready-to-vape liquid’s.

How should an opened bottle be stored?

Away from light and heat, with the cap closed tight, as the product pages advise. A bottle left on a sunny windowsill or in a hot car is exposed to exactly what that advice is meant to prevent.

Choosing Kung Fruits when you come from desserts

For a palate trained on desserts, Kung Fruits is chosen by the flesh of the fruit. Peach, mango, lychee and longan offer the gentlest transition, citrus and sharp red fruit the boldest. The cooling some shops mention is worth checking against the maker’s own page.

The rest comes down to kit. A clean coil, or a tank kept for fruit, leaves a Kung Fruits liquid all its clarity. It is the same attention to detail that guides how we read a caramel or a pastry blend in vaping.

From the same counter

Editorial content for adult readers only. Vaping products can contain nicotine, which is addictive, and vaping products are not for sale to anyone under 18 in the UK. La Goutte d’Ambre describes flavours and kit and makes no buying recommendation.