FORCES International - FRESH CHOICE Product Review

FORCES is starting a new venue to better serve our readers. On occasion we will, at the manufacturer’s request, review a product for your consideration. In this first review, we will look at a long wanted and sought after product. The electric cigarette making system, one that actually works! A new product being launched. It is called:

www.freshchoicetobacco.com

This is the first electric cigarette maker that actually measures, loads, and injects the tobacco into the tube, all the way to the filter, without destroying the tobacco (making it into dust) that we have ever found, it does it consistently and with the least amount of effort from the user.

For those of you who already make their own cigarettes, you, like many others already know the difference in quality and price, but for those who do not please allow me to make a few observations, they are generalizations only.

Legally you pay no cigarette taxes on cigarettes you make yourself, so you immediately save that sum per carton.

You will pay what in taxes is called Other Tobacco Products (OTP) tax and MSA fees, but just saving the cigarette tax can be a great savings. The OTP and MSA fees are also on store bought cigarettes, while OTP taxes are based upon wholesale cost, the MSA is based upon market share after a product has been on the market for at least a year. Therefore if you seek the newest and most inexpensive products, you will be paying the least amount of these taxes.

When you make your own cigarettes you will normally end up paying less than $10.00 per carton in overall cost even with the well established, more expensive tobaccos. Of course you cannot make them for resale, that is against Federal Law, and the penalties are substantial, both in time behind bars and financially – don’t even consider it, really, it is not worth it.

Even with the cheapest or lesser quality tobaccos you will generally get a much higher quality of tobacco that is much fresher than pre made cigarettes.

Really moist tobacco is a huge problem with any injector as are the dusty particles found at the bottom of tobacco containers. Most tobaccos are packaged at 12.5% moisture content and if kept at about 70% humidity are perfect for your smoking pleasure.

The problem is the packaging, handling, shipping, and clerk or store owner who stock shelves who don’t have a clue about why not to damage the container the tobacco is in.

You can purchase tobacco that is too dry; in that case you can put a small slice of potato, apple or leaf of lettuce - or other non toxic, moist plant substance in the container with the tobacco for a few hours to bring the moisture content back up to the desired level. Don’t leave it in there long enough to spoil! You can also give you plain tobacco a hint of flavor by doing this with items such as apple, mint, or other non toxic items. A leaf of lettuce or small piece of potato generally will add moisture without changing the taste. While I have seen small sponges recommended, I do not suggest them as they can harbor undesired germs over time; so repeated use of a sponge may not be the wisest choice. As always, your good old common sense must come into play with these decisions.

Or in some areas of the world the humidity runs very high and the tobacco will absorb this humidity and make it too moist – then you have to allow it to dry out (air dry) before using it as it does not work well in any machine if it is too moist. Simply spread it on a cookie sheet or clean newspaper for a while, until the desired moisture content is reached.

Just like each brand of cigarette has its own taste and aroma, so do the bulk tobaccos for making your own – they do have flavorings and various blends of different tobaccos, to make them unique to each other.

You may have to look around and experiment with various brands before you settle on the one you like. But never ever assume they all taste the same, they really don’t.

While long cut shag is generally made for hand rolling, some manual injectors can be finessed by the user to producing cigarettes with it. But forcing the manual machines will break them very rapidly.

To make matters a little more complicated, each cigarette tube you try can make the same tobacco taste different – so you have even more variables – but the journey is worth the time and investment as the end product is far superior to any pre made cigarette on the market.

If you enjoy smoking for the taste, flavor and experience you should consider making your own cigarettes. It becomes a real experience both socially and personally, activating all of your senses to the pleasures that the tobacco experience conveys. Store bought cigarettes cannot compare in quality or taste to those you make yourself, once you have found your perfect combination of tobacco and tube – then the only advantage a pre made cigarette has is the convenience of already being made – at a substantial loss in quality and extremely higher cost.

I have been making my own for many years, for me it is still a pleasant activity to do so. I understand that not everyone is cut out to make their own, and that is perfectly alright – some people want to make their own recipes from scratch, some people want to load their own shells for shooting, some people want to be their own mechanics or build their own computer; those personality types are the ones who enjoy doing it and are rewarded by a far superior product with a substantially lower cost for their efforts, and so it goes with making your own cigarettes.

I am very pleased to have been introduced to a new company that has created a radically new design.

Bringing a new product to production is expensive and there are certain limitations in designing a machine that can deal well with both fragile tubes and uncooperative tobacco that no other company has been willing to invest in for development to market.

Probably very few realized the size of the challenges that the Fresh Choice Electric Cigarette System has had to overcome to bring it to production, fewer still their ability to pull it off.

Now they face the challenge to bring it to market in an environment that prohibits most advertising.

We recognize their commitment to their market and their consumers - which long established companies have chosen not to satisfy with a product that has been much talked about and long awaited.

As a new product on the market this cigarette maker does have its limitations, but they are not much different than those of the existing manual machines.

As a fully automatic machine, you do not have the ability to play with the load of tobacco to make the machine do something it was not intended to do as you have with the manual machines.

So if you get dry tobacco, you keep those dusty particles in the container all mixed up with the rest of your tobacco and this machine will eliminate all that waste, which could give you another pack of cigarettes out of the container of tobacco that you would have otherwise thrown away using a manual machine. These dusty particles will jam, and if forced, damage a manual machine. If you get tobacco that is overly moist, this machine cannot load the tobacco into the spoon to fill the tube. This machine seems to protect itself from damage this way; something a manual machine cannot do – so either machine can be damaged with overly moist tobaccos.

It does very well with Fresh Choice short cut shag, but it will not load moist long cut shag tobacco into tubes, it cannot cut and compact the moist long cut tobacco into the spoon to be inserted into the tube.

The Fresh Choice Cigarette Making System has been designed to load short cut shag tobacco with a computerized microprocessor to assure it can handle the task at hand with the least amount of human intervention, and even overly moist short cut shag does not work well in this machine.

All you do is load the hopper to make about a pack of cigarettes in about 2 minutes. If you are a very experienced manual machine user, this is still less than half the time it is said to take on a manual machine. If you have any motion impairment with your hands, arms or shoulders this machine may be the answer you have been seeking.

This machine has two motors and a microprocessor that monitors the compaction level and quantity of tobacco.

In addition, the machine features a selectable compaction level, a meter slide and a control board that controls the sequence of operation, motors, it notifies the operator of problems, and it has a safety for compaction which prevents damage to the machine.

In complexity this machine is similar to a refrigerator, VCR, or microwave. For ease of operation it is like a toaster or dishwasher.

Now, a little more about how this review came to be. Sally, who owns Fresh Choice, contacted us about advertising on forces.org and as a person pretty well seasoned in making my own cigarettes my alarms immediately went off, I have seen so many scams, terrible machines and outright frauds and thieves trying to sell electric cigarette machines that did not work over the last few years and I was very wary.

But as I always respond to your emails, I also responded to Sally at Fresh Choice and asked her a lot of questions, reviewed the video on the web site, and decided to ask her if I could borrow a machine for review, to be returned when this article is finished - and she agreed. The Fresh Choice Electric Cigarette System was on its way to me that day. I have had it for a while now and overall I am extremely pleased with it.

With that said, and for those not familiar with the make your own market – to date all that has been available were handheld slider machines or a load it yourself crank machine – both extremely user sensitive to what and how you put the tobacco in the machine and how you pull the crank - that determines the quality of cigarette it is able to make and the life of the machine.

Too much or too little tobacco, too dry or too moist, or not properly distributed in the tray; and you will not have a good looking or smoking cigarette. Pushing down on the crank substantially decreases the life of the machine. These manual machines are extremely user sensitive and if you don’t know what you are doing, you will seldom have a perfect cigarette. As they were the only option on the market, consumers had no choice except those manual machines and there are quite a variety of them in all shapes and colors, but they all work basically the same.

While you can work on them yourself, if you can teach yourself how, to send one in for repair generally costs as much as simply replacing the machine.

They are also pretty time consuming and take a fair amount of practice to master, many people never do. Millions of people are using the manual machines and many love them – and there are those, perhaps like you, who have been longing for a machine such as the Fresh Choice Electric Cigarette System.

With the Fresh Choice Electric Cigarette System all those variables are now controlled by the machine, while there is an adjustment for how tightly you want the tobacco in the tube; the rest is controlled by the machine with one component for packing the tobacco into the chamber and a separate component for pushing the tobacco into the tube (using a very direct drive for both elements), this machine is capable of high quantity production, longevity, and speed.

The Fresh Choice Electric Cigarette System is limited to King size tubes only. Perhaps in the future the innovation will come about to allow for 100’s, but as a new product on the market it is limited to Kings at this time. As all tubes are made to the same standard, any King size tube on the market will fit.

And remember, each different brand of tube used on the same tobacco can make the tobacco taste very different, an inexpensive way to get substantial variety from your smoking experience.

Fresh Choice has a one year or 30,000 stick warranty –- that is 150 cartons of cigarettes. Its suggested retail price of $449.00 averages out to $2.99 per carton based on the warranted life of the machine. While this seems expensive, it isn’t when the new technology and ease of use is taken into consideration. And if your machine lasts longer than the warranty time, this reduces that cost accordingly: double the life of the machine, cut that cost in half. My concern about amortizing the machine in this fashion is this: Say I bought an ipod for $149. The warranty is only 90 days. Does that mean I am effectively paying $30 a month to enjoy my nano? No, of course not, in fact, I know I will use if for many months if not years. Plus, Fresh Choice does offer an extended 12 month warranty for additional $100. You can compare this machine to a printer. The standard warranty for a printer is 12 months. Would you buy an HP Inkjet 2300 for $499- financing it with their program at $15 a month- and expect it to last only 12 months? I don't think so!? Cuisinart has a warranty of 12 months on their coffee makers and mixers, yet none of us are replacing our appliances annually.

I believe smokers will buy the Fresh Choice Electric Cigarette System not only to save money but also to enjoy fresher, better cigarettes with the exceptional ease of making cigarettes at home.

But while a one year is acceptable in North America, the Federal Law of the European Union requires all warranties be at least two years, so before they can ship over the big pond, they may have to adjust that international detail.

Fresh Choice has an excellent service center set up in California, that if you are experiencing problems you can call a toll free number, 800-243-2737, and most of the time someone can walk you through your issue over the phone. But if the machine needs repair and it is under warranty you must pay shipping both ways to have your machine serviced, this is true of manual machines also.

If it is determined on the phone to be a manufacturer’s defect, they will ship you a new machine and a call tag to pick up your faulty machine. The machine has been reviewed and underwritten by ETL Intertek. The testing that ETL did has formed the basis for the CE self declaration and the motors are CE and UL marked. The product is RoHS compliant.

I asked about repairs and parts availability and was told they do have components in stock to support any problem.

I also asked about the expected longevity of the Fresh Choice Electric Cigarette System, they said the testing that has been done the machines is a group of ten makers that run 24 hours a day, for days on end. They have makers that have made in excess of 60,000 cigarettes without failure and are still operating.

As a completely new technology, this product has limitations at this stage of development, the warranty also specifies that only Fresh Choice tobacco can be used in the Fresh Choice Electric Cigarette System or you will void the warranty. Ordering tobacco is no problem, all you need do is call 800-243-2737, and as you can see above they have a great selection! You can also walk in and purchase it from these finer Tobacco Stores in person.

As a consumer I disagree with this limitation, as I like to use different tobaccos just for the pleasure of the experience and this does not allow my much appreciated use of other tobaccos.

Without talking to Sally about this, I would imagine it is for idiot control - that is someone who would try to make cigarettes with tobacco that is too moist or some other type of tobacco the machine is not programmed to handle - and either have bad smoking cigarettes, or a damaged or broken machine instantly by forcing such products into the machine. - - Later I did ask Sally, and she stated when the machines were first released to market, they were being damaged or broken by smokers who were trying to load pipe tobacco into cigarette tubes, overly moist long and short cut tobaccos, etc. – types of tobaccos the machine simply was not designed to handle – thus they were unhappy customers with damaged machines. Fresh Choice was forced to alter the warranty so consumers would clearly understand the machine does have limitations.

Either way, an unhappy customer or bad product reputation is not what Fresh Choice wants, so the limit is to assure satisfaction with the machine. Only Fresh Choice tobaccos are packaged at the perfect moisture content for use with the Fresh Choice Electric Cigarette System.

With the manual machines, if you are very, very careful you can use many kinds of tobaccos, the cut and moisture content of tobacco can be forced or finessed, always risking damage –- not so with this machine. In its infancy of design technology – it still has its limitations.

This will, in my opinion, be the most significant challenge this machine faces in going to market as we all have our favorite tobaccos, but if we support this company who has fulfilled our wildest wish of the electric cigarette maker, they will soon be able to develop more advanced machines that are more flexible about the tobacco and tubes used.

Before you get too upset over this limitation, let me tell you about how well it works.

The only part that is serviceable by the consumer is the spoon, and there is a Clean button that extends the spoon to be cleaned with a q-tip and alcohol; – the rest of the internal workings are not serviceable or cleanable and designed not to come in contact with the tobacco –thus keeping the tobacco residue issues with manual machines at bay. You can keep the hopper clean by removing the face plate and brushing any remaining tobacco out when you are done making cigarettes.

My husband and I have been making cigarettes for some time now with the Fresh Choice Electric Cigarette System and they are always consistently full, clear to the filter.

We have played with the dial for compacting the tobacco in the tube and you can make very loose to very tight cigarettes.

The Fresh Choice machine does not leave a wad of tobacco hanging out of the end of the tube that needs cut off with scissors as the manual machines sometimes do.

As with manual machines, if you make up your cigarettes for days in advance the tobacco will dry out more easily – when this happens, there will be some tobacco drop from the end of the tube when it is not lit. As we have made so many cigarettes putting the Fresh Choice Electric Cigarette System through its paces, we have boxes and bags of them (gallon zip locks) and this has been noticed – but we have had not one hot ember fall from any of the cigarettes we have made on the Fresh Choice Electric Cigarette System, and we do not tap them down to compact the tobacco in the tube when made or before lighting them.

We can honestly say we are very pleased with the Fresh Start Electric Cigarette System and are going hate to return it, but as it is a loaner we must, after all that is our agreement – but you can bet we will be ordering one! We can recommend that you do also!

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