UWELL Yearn Kit: More Flavor than You'd Expect

The UWELL Yearn is the follow-up pod system to the very popular Caliburn. There are a few differences between the two devices, but the most important difference is that the Yearn is a closed-system pod vape. That’s right! UWELL has a pre-filled device.

The UWELL Yearn is capable of up to 11 watts operating on a 370 mAh internal battery. The pods only hold 1.5 mL of juice and they’re rated at 1.4 ohms. There are four flavors to choose from, and they come in two strengths of nic salt: 20 mg/mL and 50 mg/mL. Unfortunately, you’ll have to purchase the pods separately since there is no official starter kit with the device and the pods. But there is a variety pack that contains all four flavors if you’re not sure which to buy. Then again, you could find out a little more about which flavors we recommend if you read this review.

Price: $14.95 (at Element Vape)
Colors: Black, grey, blue & black, violet & black

The UWELL Yearn is a slim and pocketable pre-filled pod vape. Aside from it coming from UWELL, it’s a lot different than the Caliburn. The Yearn weighs about 41 grams with a pod in, which makes it heavier than the Caliburn despite being shorter. It stands approximately 87 mm x 20 mm x 10.5 mm. And it’s also totally solid where the Caliburn’s body feels unrefined, especially with the bottom edge. The Yearn doesn’t have a button-activation like the Caliburn; you simply draw on the mouthpiece and it hits automatically. The mouthpiece is really nice and the glossyness of the body matches with the mouthpiece. It’s got a bit of a wedge form factor and it’s a pleasure to hit.

Aside from the Yearn not being able to stand up like the Caliburn, its build quality and design, as well as fit and finish, are of a higher quality. The pod doesn’t click into place like with the Caliburn though, and ours has a slight gap between the pod and the device. But the pods are held in firmly. The pods have a nice-sized juice window that makes the juice levels clearly visible, up until the remaining ~15% of the pod. These are niggly little details. In general, the Yearn has the look and feel of a quality device.

Do not vape the pods immediately!

Before getting started, it’s important to note that the pods are not ready to be vaped right out of the package. Similar to the IVG Starter Kit, the pods have an isolated e-liquid chamber that isn’t in contact with the wick. The base of the pod gets pushed up when you insert the pod into the battery device, effectively acting as the first (and only) fill of the pod, which means you’ll have to wait a few minutes before vaping so that the wicking material has time to soak up the liquid. UWELL recommends 10 minutes. After the base gets pushed up, you’ll see bubbles rushing up inside of the pod, which are seen through the generous-sized oval juice window.

For those of you out there used to vaping pre-filled vape kits, this is going to be a slight hassle. One of the benefits of the vast majority of pre-filled devices is that you can begin using them immediately. Although you won’t have to handle e-liquid or refilling the pods, you will have to carry out one step that involves a wait time.

This is a convenient way for the user to enjoy flavor that’s not been sitting in a pod for who knows how long. That also means the impatient user that skips the user manual will get a burnt hit because the wick is not pre-soaked. It’s a benefit to the device as well as a con for the user. We recommend taking out the pods ahead of time and manually pushing up the base to prepare the pods for future use, without having to wait 10 minutes before you begin.

Other than that, there are no buttons or secret-codes to turn on the device. The pods are press-fit in the device, with none of the lame magnetic connections where the pods will pop out from a simple fall. And because it’s draw-activated, it’ll be ready to go as soon as the pods wicking material is fully soaked. Just heed the advice of manually pushing up the base of the pod with your finger ahead of time, so that when you are ready to use it, the pods will be ready to go.

Lighting quick, super quiet, and did we mention lighting quick? With just a gentle pull, the device activates. UWELL doesn’t say what kind of coil is in the pod, but it hits quickly as if its mesh. It’s a loose MTL draw that produces a warm vape. You won’t have to draw super hard and collapse your cheeks like you’re drinking a milk shake through a coffee straw. For some it might be a bit too loose, but we find it pleasurable once you get adjusted to its pull.

Depending on the nicotine concentration you bought, the throat hit is either going to be light with the 20 mg/mL or strong with the 50 mg/mL. With 50 mg/mL, the throat hit can be a bit sharp, almost to the point of leaving some scratchiness. Not all of us that tested this felt that though. You can chain vape it fairly well as long as your hits aren’t too long, like taking multiple consecutive hits over 5 seconds. That’s pushing it a bit too much, especially considering the almost non-existent ramp up.

Where things get almost weird is in how much flavor the device can produce. Before we get into the actual flavors and how good (or not) they are, we’ve been floored with the amount of flavor from the Yearn. We’ve had no spitback or leaking, but the flavor is so pronounced, you might actually think the pod is spraying liquid in your mouth. Although the Caliburn was heralded as having more flavor than your average pod vape, the Yearn has more than the Caliburn! Too bad this isn’t an open-system pod because, regardless of how much flavor it can produce, you’re stuck with the four flavors available.

As mentioned, the Yearn can produce some incredible flavor. It’s almost odd coming from such a small device. But since it’s prefilled, the flavor production is going to be secondary to the quality of the flavors themselves. After all, what good is off-the-charts flavor if the flavors themselves are subpar?

The flavor packs come in small boxes of two pods and the variety pack has four pods (one of each flavor available).

Fuji Apple
By far the best flavor from this device that we tried. The Fuji Apple is sweet, slightly tart, and unmistakably apple. Although the pods don’t have clear indications of which flavor is which, just a quick sniff of the pod will make it obvious when you have Fuji Apple in your hand.

Mango
It’s not as good as many of the Mango juices on the market, but where the flavor profile lacks, the quality of the flavor production takes over. It’s got a fairly non-descript mango taste with a bit of menthol. It’s not going to win any “best mango juice” awards and it’s barely discerinble as mango…but it’s a decent vape on its own.

Ice Mint
This is where things start to go south for the Yearn. The Ice Mint should be an easy juice to pull off, but the flavor tastes cooked, like it’s slightly burning–even though the pod had ample time to soak up the juice. Because of the off-tasting hits, we can’t really comment on the flavor all that much because we won’t vape it.

Vanilla Tobacco
Despite our anticipation of this being our favorite juice, it was by far the worst! Like with mint, but even more with the Vanilla Tobacco, the flavor tastes like it’s pre-infused with the taste of a burnt hit. That’s not good! This and the Ice Mint went in the trash, just to make sure no one accidentally used it. We really hope that this was just a bad batch with the Mint and Tobacco flavors.

Flavor recommendations: We strongly recommend the Fuji Apple. The Ice Mint and Vanilla Tobacco sounded good to us, but we were extremely disappointed in the flavors. They just taste off! Of course, it’s possible that what we purchased was a case of bunk coils that messed with the flavors. Your mileage may vary. If you’re itching to try the Vanilla Tobacco like we were, do yourself a favor and try the variety pack first.

At 370 mAh, the Yearn doesn’t have a lot of battery life.  But, what’s cool about the battery capacity is that it’s almost perfectly in-tune with the liquid quantity (which is also somewhat low). 370 mAh and 1.5 mL juice isn’t all that great, but what we’ve found is that, on a fully charged battery, the charge will last right up until the pod is out of liquid. So if your battery was full and you put in a full pod, your battery life can effectively be read by how much juice you have left. It’s not really a feature per se, but we like being able to ascertain the battery status based on the juice level. Of course, there is a battery indication light as well.

• Green: high/fully charged
• Blue: medium
• Red: low/time to charge

As it charges, the charge lights will pulse. From totally depelted to fully charged it took 71 minutes. At about 52 minutes, the light turned to green, but it was still pulsing and a ways out from complete. It’s a rather long charge for only 370 mAh, but luckily the Yearn has pass-thru charging. Even on a totally depleted battery, you can get a hit immediately once you insert a charge cord into the micro USB. You can’t chain-vape on it right after plugging it up if the battery was totally drained, but you can get a quick couple hits if you need to. Once it’s been on a few minutes, you can vape freely on it as it charges.

Note: when we charged the Yearn to clock the charge time, we did not vape on it at all.

UWELL has a way with coaxing flavor out of pod vapes typically unheard of with these kinds of devices. It almost doesn’t make sense how much flavor comes from the Yearn! Unfortunately, half of the four flavors available for the Yearn turned out to be no good to us. But with the Fuji Apple, and to a lesser degree, Mango, we are comfortable recommending the device. We’re not a fan of having to order pods separately for a beginner’s kit like this though. Why not just include a variety pack with the purchase of the device?

We are concerned about the odd performance issues with the Ice Mint and the Vanilla tobacco. We’ve only tried one variety pack and a couple packs each of Mango and Fuji Apple; it’s possible that the poor performance of the Ice Mint and Vanilla Tobacco was an anomaly, but we can’t say for sure. Hopefully those issues don’t surface with the Mango and especially Fuji Apple because it would be a travesty to have that much flavor in a pod vape go to waste!

We’d like to hear from you. Have you tried the UWELL Yearn? How was your experience with the device? And which flavors worked out best (or not so good) for you?