Tobacco Flavoured E Liquid Review: Tribeca By Halo

Is Tribeca the best flavour for beginner vapers?

The Steam Age Halo Tribeca review covers:

• Why it is best to start with a tobacco-flavoured e liquid if you are moving from cigarettes to vaping.
• Tribeca reviewed in 1) Classic Blue Series High PG Tribeca & 2) the new (2018) Nicotine Salts version Tribeca Ultra Salts.
• Some recommended vaping starter kits that match the 2 types of Tribeca.

Who it Suits: 1) Tobacco smokers who are considering trying a switch to vaping 2) Vapers who vape tobacco-flavoured e liquid. 

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes.

Quitting Smoking with Vaping - Start with a Tobacco-flavoured e liquid!

When you first start vaping (and are trying to ‘give up’/ ‘replace’ smoking) the best idea is to start with a tobacco-flavoured e-juice.

Fruit and dessert flavours may sound interesting but you can try them out later - once you have successfully switched to vaping. Initially your goal is to just replace the fags with vaping. In order to do this, having the vaping experience mirror your smoking experience as much as is possible works best. As cigarettes are tobacco-flavoured go with a tobacco-flavoured e liquid when you vape.

The key reason vaping is so successful as a ‘nicotine replacement therapy’ is that it mirrors so many of the behaviours you enact each time you smoke. IE when you vape you:

• Use your hands in the same motion as when you smoke.
• Use your mouth in the same way: Inhale/ exhale. Puff.
• Experience a similar throat hit. 
• Experience a similar taste — if you choose a tobacco flavoured e liquid that is. 

Your addiction to cigarettes is a combination of all these behavioural/ experiential factors. You have practiced them 10’s of 1000s of times: they are the habit in essence. Line them all up in a way that makes vaping feel almost the same as smoking (or quite possibly even better than smoking) and odds are that you will find using vaping to quit far easier than other options like nicotine patches.

Note if you typically smoke menthol-flavoured cigarettes, then correct, you need a menthol flavoured juice. So we’d recommend you start with Halo’s Subzero Menthol flavoured e liquid which we have reviewed here.

Dual Use: Smoking & Vaping to Start with

Most people will both smoke AND vape as they transition to vaping only. This is completely normal, so don’t pay yourself out about it. You may need to do both for a few weeks or a month or so. You are in a sense training your brain to get use to vaping vs smoking. It isn’t, of course, exactly the same - just the best replication of the process available.

Quite a few people however are able to start vaping and just finish the packet of cigarettes they are on when they start. (Your author, a 20 year+ 25-40 a day smoker, was in this group - and was completely stunned by the experience - given he had until that time thought he would never get off the smokes and was really only trying vaping for ‘the hell of it’).

Whatever your experience is go easy on yourself, you are trying to change/ modify a deeply entrenched behaviour and you need to play around with it until you get the vaping formula to work for you.

Vaping has worked for millions of smokers where nicotine patches, cold turkey, champix and hypnosis has failed - so it sure isn’t going to hurt for you to try it.

If you are struggling to completely transition after a month or so (or just ‘don’t really like vaping’ when you first try it) we’d recommend you:

• Try different nicotine strengths in your ejuice: Make sure you are getting enough from vaping in the first instance - you can cut down later. And make sure you aren’t of course getting too much nicotine from vaping and feeling dizzy from it.
• Try different flavour ejuice brands/ tobacco-flavour variants: Tribeca is the #1 best-selling tobacco flavoured juice in the world - which is why this review is on it - as it has delivered satisfaction to millions of former smokers worldwide over the past few years. But Halo has another 10 or so excellent tobacco flavoured juices - try some of them out. Certainly there are some truly horrible juices on the market - particularly, I must say, in tobacco-flavours - if you have tried one and it didn’t work for you don’t give up get something better. And bear in mind that taste is subjective, you need to find a flavour that works for you personally.
• Try different types of vaping starter kits: There are a large number to choose from and each offers a slightly different throat hit, airflow and feel in the mouth. Don’t just try one and say ‘vaping didn’t work for me’, experiment. Relative to the cost of smoking, you have plenty of budget to work with, so make sure you use all the options you need to get the shift to vaping job done. You can and will save a lot of money once you have transited completely, for now focus on finding the formula that enables you to complete the transition.

Halo Tribeca Review

Tribeca is made by the long-standing American e liquid manufacturer Halo (also referred to as Halocigs).

Halo prides itself on absolutely stringent quality control in the production of its eliquids. To that end, all of their juices are independently lab tested. Check out: Tribeca's Lab Test Results Here.

You can take a look at Halo's rather impressive production facility in Florida in this video:

Tribeca is far and away the #1 best-seller in their range and may well be the all-time best-selling tobacco-flavoured ejuice worldwide.

Tribeca comes in two main versions. The High PG (50/50 blend) ‘Blue Series’ version which has been around for many years. And the new (released in 2018) nicotine salts version Tribeca ‘Ultra Salts’. This review covers both of them for you.

Tribeca is super-popular!

At Steam Age Tribeca has been a best-selling tobacco flavoured juice since day 1 - for about 5 years now. 

We have suggested Tribeca to 100s of tobacco smokers to help them give up smoking cigarettes. They report an overwhelmingly high level of satisfaction with the flavour and quality of the liquid.

1) ‘Blue Series’ Tribeca - High PG version reviewed

Here is Halo’s official description of the flavour of Tribeca:

“A renowned e-liquid that stands alone among all others, Tribeca has set the industry standard with the flavour of smooth, transcendent tobacco harmoniously blended with the perfect hint of vanilla and caramel to generate an exquisite, sweet finish.”

Vaping Tribeca again after a year or two of vaping mostly fruit and dessert-flavoured juices, I am mostly struck by how Tribeca doesn't have any hint of that ‘dirty’ tobacco taste that a lot of tobacco-flavoured juices have. It is a smooth, mild, but clear-tobacco taste, with the addition of a bit of sweetness that lingers on the lips at exhale. This is really nice and it reminds me why it has so many raving fans and return customers.

The sweetness isn’t overpowering, but kind of moreish like a snack you can’t quite stop consuming!

The throat hit is solid, but not overwhelming - just right for replacing the feeling of smoking in the throat.

Here’s a great review of Tribeca, from The Vape Lounge, which gives some first impressions on the experience from a man trying to stay off the cigarettes!

For the purposes of this review I vaped Tribeca in 12mg, but this store also offers it in 3mg, 6mg & 18mg.

You can grab some Halo Tribeca in 50mls/ 100mls here.

Price considerations: At NZD $60 per 100mls or $35 for 50mls Tribeca is a premium-priced e liquid, but relative to quality is excellent value.

Blue Series PG/ VG ratio: Approx 50/50.

Steam Age Reviewer Score of Halo’s Tribeca Blue Series: 

Flavour: 9/10

Consistency: 10/10

Quality Control: 10/10

Price/ Value ratio: 9/10

Halo Tribeca Blue Series Overall Score: 9.5/10

Recommended Devices for Vaping Halo Tribeca Blue Series

Steam Age generally recommends 2 devices for vaping Halo Tribeca Blue Series: (Both were used to test the flavour during this review).

1) The Innokin T18 Starter Kit - this is a classic, super-reliable refillable vape pen. 

2) The Aspire Nautilus AIO Starter Kit - this is a new (released late-2018) starter kit from Aspire with the advantage that it offers coil variants for each of 1) vaping High PG juice and 2) vaping Nicotine salts. If you are thinking of trying Tribeca in both versions then the flexibility of the Aspire AIO is the way to go. 

Another Option for those that want a super-convenient way to vape is Tribeca in a pre-filled pod on:

3) The Aspire Gusto Mini Starter Kit - select the Tribeca pod option in 6mg or 12mg nicotine strength. You can use a mouth-to-lung or direct-to-lung style draw on the Gusto - works well for both. A handy system when you haven’t time or inclination to refill your tank - great when travelling, busy or you when you require an unobtrusive device.

2) ‘Ultra Salts’ Tribeca - Nicotine Salts version reviewed

Halo released the new nicotine salts version of Tribeca in mid-2018. As is typical of Halo, they took their time in doing so, ensuring they had perfected it as much as possible. The Ultra Salts release was for only 2 of their 20 or so classic flavours: they released salts versions for only Tribeca (best-selling tobacco flavour) and Subzero (their best-selling menthol flavour - you can check out our review of Halo Subzero here which also covers the nic salts version of Subzero). 

Tribeca Nic Salts Flavour Notes

Tribeca Salts stays quite true to the original. Although the tobacco-flavour seems just slightly more pronounced - this might be because of the added strength of the nicotine salts. They have also managed to produce the salts version without there being any salty aftertaste - quite unusual as most juices translated to salt have a distinctly salty shift in flavour.

Vaping Tribeca salts at 35mg the throat-hit is strong but not too much. At 50mg it packs quite a punch and is probably an excellent choice for a Malboro Red/ strong ciggie smoker making the switch.

Yet again Halo’s emphasis on quality control really shines through in the translation of Tribeca to nicotine salts. Presentation, taste and quality are all superb. Highly recommended.

Tobacco-flavoured-juice Vapers: If you like Tribeca in the blue series the nic salts version is a must try.

Tobacco Smokers: If you are currently a tobacco smoker looking for the current best tobacco-flavoured option in vaping, then Halo Tribeca Ultra Salts is where we’d suggest, in 2019, you start!

Price considerations. At NZD$30 in 30mls Halo Tribeca Ultra salts is very reasonable. Strong-brand Nic salts juices are typically at around the $35 per 30mls mark - and typically won’t offer the same quality or consistency as Halo. Therefore, Tribeca Ultra Salts is excellent value for money.

Ultra Salts PG/ VG ratio: Approx 50/50.

Steam Age Reviewer Score of Halo Tribeca Ultra Salts: 

Flavour: 10/10

Consistency: 10/10

Quality Control: 10/10

Price/ Value ratio: 10/10

Halo Subzero Ultra Salts Overall Score: 10/10

Recommended devices for vaping Halo Tribeca Ultra Salts.

Tribeca in the nic salts version will work well with all good refillable pod-systems.

For the purposes of this review we tested Tribeca Ultra Salts using two devices. As we enjoyed the combinations so much we have put together a combo deal for each device of the devices with a bottle of Halo Tribeca Ultra Salts: 

1) The Justfog Minifit Pod System + Tribeca Ultra Salts Deal: A super-stealthy tiny pod-mod and a very low-priced way to try Tribeca ultra salts. 

2) The Suorin Air V2 + Tribeca Ultra Salts Deal: A super-thin stylish card-like pod-mod, that we love. 

Quick Links:

If you like Tribeca you might like to check out some other notable Halo juices with a tobacco-flavour profile.

• Turkish Tobacco - Smooth Light Tobacco flavour.
• Prime 15 - Nutty Tobacco flavour.
• Torque 56 - Unfiltered Tobacco flavour.
• Long Horn - Fire Cured Tobacco - Corojo and Cavendish tobacco flavours.

Check out Steam Age's Halo E Liquid category in full for over 20 Halo variant juices.

Check out the Steam Age Tobacco e liquid category in full for over 20 Tobacco-flavoured juices. 

To those of you outside of New Zealand or Australia, and based in the United States - you can get Tribeca direct from Halo’s website here.