Roughly 9 months ago Sam was given his first vape and e-liquid, bought from an unknown source and passed on from a friend, as a method to quit smoking. Like many of us, Sam’s first vape was a pen styled vape and came with a selection of DIY juice, not knowing where the juice came from, or anything about vaping really. Sam was put off pretty quickly, until he bought an iTaste, within weeks his iTaste was malfunctioning which is when he found his way to the Vapourium, and started his longterm love affair with VapeLife.
When asked how long it took for him to get hooked into VapeLife, he looked me dead in the eye and said, “I met you, and the rest of the Vapourium crew *laughs*. You're the one who suckered me into spending $300 on my first proper vape set up (Evic Mini and Indestructible RDA), then you said that I should YouTube if I had any issues and couldn’t get into the store. And as soon as I started on YouTube I got hooked on it, I had so much fun looking it up and learning to build (coils). I just wanted new things to build on and use!”.
Although Sam started off with his pen styled vape, his collection is now something to be envied! Just today he had two high powered rigs with him, with a Vaporesso Tarot Pro and Herakles RTA set up to chuck some clouds! And a Maxo Quad and Tsunami RDA combo, built for flavour with some of the Vapourium's premade Spaced Alien wire. But that's not all, he normally carries 3-4 mods around with him, just in case he feels the need for something a little different. I couldn't help but laugh and asked why the need for so many mods at a time, "One for every set up, I don't know, different flavours? I guess I'm fussy!".
Originally intending to quit smoking due to the expense, Sam has become an integral part of New Zealand’s Vape Community, running the new NZ Coil Builder’s page with his partner, Amba.
New Zealand’s Vape Community is a passionate topic of conversation with any avid Vaper in NZ, so it’s not surprising that it came up during our talk, and honestly, it’s not hard to see why this community means so much to him.
Near the beginning of his life of vaping Sam found himself in a predicament that left him with no juice, no money and only his coils, he was close to leaning back towards the stinkies (an affectionate term for cigarettes). So he left a post on one of the popular Vape groups on Facebook “Vape NZ”, offering to swap the coils he had built for e-liquid. Within minutes people were messaging him, asking for his address, sending him enough juice to tide him over and support him in his plight to stay off the cigarettes.
“The vaping community is amazing, great family. We’re pretty lucky to have the people there and the community that we have. We’re supported by venders and and the vape community in general. I think we are luckier than others, having such a tight nit group.”
I asked Sam if he had anything to say to you all, “Show us your clouds! Nah, keep going the way you’re going, the community we have is amazing. Look at you (Vapourium), you still have a passion for it, even though you work in it. You still do half the vape life for free. Look at Cam and Tom (Tom and Cam run a youtube show Vaping Iwi, reviewing different vender’s juice and products). It’s people like you guys that make me want to do more for the NZ Coil Builder’s page.
Sam continues to be a regular at the shop, and is one of our best customers! We look forward to many more conversations around the table with a coffee and your latest mod!
The best part of our job is hearing what an impact vaping has made in people's lives, do you want to share Your Story?