You may not have heard, but over the last few months a new and exciting development has slowly been working its way into the nation's e-liquid supply: tobacco-free nicotine.

What is it?

We've visited this topic before but basically it's exactly what it sounds like – a nicotine concentrate that's synthesized in a lab, using absolutely no tobacco leaves, stems, dust, or anything else from the tobacco plant.

Why is that important?

There are a few reasons, but the big ones boil down to regulation of tobacco products and the federal Food and Drug Administration's authority to control the use and sale of tobacco. The definition of everything related to vaping, from nicotine-free liquid, tanks to mods and even to batteries, relies on the assertion that they could be 'reasonably expected' to be used to consume tobacco. If you add your own nicotine concentrate to 0mg juice, or if you pour any juice that's derived in any part from tobacco into your tank, not only is your tank now a 'tobacco product,' so is the mod that fires it and the battery that powers your mod.

If tobacco free nicotine were to become the predominant additive to liquids containing nicotine, one could argue with some degree of rationality that it wouldn't be reasonable to 'expect' that all vaping hardware was intended for consuming tobacco. We already know that nicotine, while addictive, is not the component responsible for the health dangers of smoking. It's a naturally-occurring substance that's also in your broccoli, tomatoes, and a host of other plants including many that are routinely eaten by humans.

The hope is that perhaps a more rational debate could ensue, separating the wholly different activities of vaping and smoking, and the merits of vaping as a harm reduction tool to decrease the world's reliance on smoldering tobacco sticks might get a fair hearing as it has in so many other countries across the globe.

Okay, theoretically not bad. But won't it mess with my juice's flavor?

This is actually the best part – late last year, we got our hands on some TFN of our own and used it to craft a few of our favorite homebrew recipes to test side by side with traditional nicotine concentrates.

The TFN juices didn't just stand up to the tobacco-extracted nicotine, *they were better*. TFN is crisper, cleaner, and provides less noticeable throat hit (okay, maybe for some folks this isn't a great thing). It especially allowed delicate flavors like fruits to shine, breathing new life into flavors that were once just 'okay.'

Sounds great. Why isn't everyone using TFN?

Quite simply, this is a new technology – and it's expensive. TFN extracts cost several times more than traditional nicotine, meaning it's hard for budget juice makers to hit their price points. Our hope is that as the technology becomes more mainstream, the cost will come down to compete with, and maybe even undercut, current extraction methods.

That said, you don't have to wait to give TFN a try - we've got more than two dozen varieties of TFN available on the site right now – click through and check them out!