Just as an intro, I’ve been Hueling since around 4 years ago and done well over 100 bags in total, quite possibly double that, which is just to say I’m both committed to Huel and have tried a variety of the SKUs, inc the black, u/u and most non-savoury versions (both as in versions = flavours and versions = huel versioning).
One of my observations, and admittedly it’s always been so, that pre-flavoured Huels taste rather “homeopathic” – which is to say it smells as it say on the label, but hardly tastes like so. I can detect a faint taste of whatever is on the label, banana, caramel, berry, etc but it tastes very little of it.
On the other hand, flavour pouches always taste as expected (regardless of personal opinion on which are better or less good, but they do taste like banana, caramel, berry, and so on – when used as directed [which is to say I wish to point out that I’m not trying to compare throwing 2-3x concentration of flavouring pouches into Huel Original and then expect Huel Banana to be the same])
So the question I have, why is that, in terms of flavouring strength, pre-flavoured Huel tastes nothing like Original + Flavouring’d Huel? It’s quite an offputting thing to be fair because anything apart from Original is just an odd taste of “something”, which is strong enough not to want to mix in a pouch, but weak in terms of not providing the ‘real’ flavour as expected. Clearly this is a product-development and/or marketing decision, otherwise some SKUs would have stronger flavours but all of them are very weak.
Hey Viktor, thanks for the message. Amazing you’ve been around for 4 years I personally would love to know exactly how much Huel I have consumed over this time. 100-200 pouches doesn’t seem unreasonable at all!
The reason is that our flavour boosts aren’t made to be put on top of Original, they’re made to be put on top of Vanilla. Original is sweeter than Vanilla so you’re going to get a bigger hit of flavour as a result of that sweetness bringing it through. Sweetener is acts kinda like a flavour enhancer, it’s why you can’t just add flavour to Huel with no sweetener, it wouldn’t work.
In general you will get a bigger hit of flavour with flavour boosts too. When you put a flavour boost onto preblend (like Vanilla or Original) you are essentially doubling up on both flavour and sweetener so you are going to get a bigger hit in flavour strength & sweetness (which will enhance the perceived flavour profile) than if you just use preblends alone. If you put flavour boost on UU the flavour delivery will be very low because the sweetener level is very low as well as overall flavour inclusion.
I guess if you’re using flavour boosts most of the time, with Original too, you going to be used to higher level of sweetness. The preblends aren’t bland, but they just aren’t nearly as sweet/flavoured as Original + Flavour Boosts.
However, if you’re happy with your Original + Flavour Boosts, then just carry on! You could get one of the larger packs of FB too so you can choose how much FB you include.
Yes, I am on the large flavour boosts, orig + instant coffee + salted caramel is a defo win for a good variety of reasons so I have about 3-4 pouches of SC at home (large pouches that is.)
Anyway, re: your comment: I admittedly never really got my head around the Vanilla product. Depending on which specific version (2.1 vs 3) it’s somewhat less or more vanilla-esque but generally not my cuppa. Nonetheless it has never particularly occurred to me that one should put FBs into V (vanilla for short) because…well it’s doubling up on the flavours and if I use Flavour X then ultimately I want to drink X-flavoured Huel and…and V + flavour <> flavour if you understand my logic. (so the idea of V + anything else doesn’t work for me too much whereas Orig + flavour does kinda == flavour)
I personally would love to know exactly how much Huel I have consumed over this time. 100-200 pouches doesn’t seem unreasonable at all!