Home Pod Mods TAKI Mini Disposable Pod Review

TAKI Mini Disposable Pod Review

The disposable vapes that are everything but tacky

September 16, 2019

The TAKI mini (or TK- mini) Disposable E-cigarettes, are certainly different when it comes to shape and design.

Please bare with me, although I’m learning Chinese, in not fluent, so my translations might not be exactly right.

TAKI currently make the TK-Mini and a rechargeable pod system. The brand was launched summer this year (2019)

Although pretty much every website is advertising this device as the Xiaomi TAKI, which would say it is from the brand Xiaomi right? Well, it looks like this may not be the case.

There is a connection between the companies, but nothing more. The “About us” page of website reads:

“TAKI Xiike brand is affiliated to Beijing Konjac Technology Co., Ltd. The founder is Zhong Yufei, and the team members are from Xiaomi, Jinshan, Meizu, etc.”

But I’m a reviewer not a gossip blogger so if you want to know more I suggest you look it up.

What to expect from the Taki Mini Disposable E-cig?

Knowing what to expect from a Chinese product, that has very few English descriptions isn’t easy, especially when the box is written in Chinese.

It is clear that these disposable vapes are targeted at smokers, packing 5% (50mg) Nicotine Salts, these little beasts are about the same length as a cigarette.

See The Taki Mini in Action

Discount Codes

Save on the 5 piece Gift Box – $27.99/£23 With Code xiaomi07
Buy 3 get 3 free – $29.97 / £24.50 With Code xiaomi06
Buy 2 get 1 free – xiaomi05

In the Box

I received the gift box that contains all 5 flavours. I’d like to add, the box is very smart and well presented. Inside the box:

1 x Mung Bean Ice system
1 x Blueberry Burst system
1 x Ice Litchi system
1 x Ice Coffee system
1 x Flue-Cured Tobacco system

All the flavours have their individual boxes, Inside the Individual boxes, the pods systems are protected by a rubber cap on the top and bottom of the device, inside an airtight, easy rip packet.

Specs and Features

Size: 16.4 x 7.4 x 94.2mm
Liquid Capacity: 1.5ml
Puff expectation: 400
Battery Capacity: 280 mAh
Nicotine Strength: 50mg (5%) Nic-Salts (Non TPD)
Ready to use

Design & Build Quality

The outer boxing is pretty cool, nicely presented with a magnetic strip.

Inside, the 5 devices are in their own boxes, and they shine! It’s a bit like when somebody opens a magical box on a sci-fi film. The individual device boxes are comprised of a shiny, metallic silver and a colour that indicates the flavour of the device.

The individual boxes fit into the outer box nice and snug, so it’s quite handy that TAKI have placed a plastic Strip inside to help remove the first device box.

Inside the individual boxes the systems await, wrapped in a silver plastic, airtight packet that has easy rip notches.

Inside the plastic wrapping the pod is ready to use, other than 2 dust caps (one on top and one on the bottom of the device).

The TAKI devices.

My first thought about the systems?

The shape – TAKI didn’t waste any time trying to design a nice shapely device. They just stuck with a very simple rectangular cuboid, that is quite long (94mm), not very wide (16.4mm) and very thin (7.4mm).

Just to confirm, no, there isn’t even a change of shape for the mouthpiece.

When I first started using the devices, I was guilty of puffing from the wrong end every now and them. Because the “mouthpiece”, isn’t a different shape, it is impossible to tell which side to suck on, without looking,

The body of the TK Minis are metal but you wouldn’t know it because they are full wrapped in a smooth plastic (laminated) sticker, except from the top and bottom, which are plastic.

The devices are very soft and smooth, you can’t feel any joints and the side edges are curved. Although, the edges of the top and bottom of the device are not curved.

Because of how thin the devices are, they fit pretty comfortably between the fingers, in hand and between the lips.

Visually

All the devices are designed the same, except from the indicator colour.

The right half of the device is a colour which indicates the flavour with white writing.

The left half of the device is white with “TAKI” in the colour which indicates the flavour.

The flavour is also printed on 1 side of the device in English and Chinese.

The colours and their associated flavours are as follows:

Dark Blue / Black = Flue-Cured Tobacco
Brown = Ice Coffee
Red = Ice Litchi
Blue = Blueberry Burst
Green = Mung Bean Ice

LED Indicator

Why does everybody put the indicator on the bottom? It really does annoy me, and TAKI have fell foul of this. The Indicator is blue and bang center on the bottom of the device; with an airflow hole either side.

It’s not so bright that you’ll stand out, but it’s bright enough to be seen in light or dark situations.

Airflow

The airflow is pretty much a perfect replication of a cigarette (if I can remember that far back).

I mentioned in the ePuffer Xpod Mini review, quite often, when the airflow is shut off or covered you still get a bit of air making its way through the joints.

That’s not the case here, the systems are that well built when you cover the air holes with your finger absolutely no air gets through.

Quick Start

As simple as it gets:

Remove the pod from the air tight packet.
Remove the rubber caps from the top and bottom of the device
Enjoy

When the device has ran out, the LED indicator will not light up while you take a puff. It will flash several times, after you have finished inhaling.

How Do The TAKI Mini Disposable E-cigarettes Perform?

All the flavours are pretty impressive, when you take in the vapour production into consideration.

The flavours are prominent enough not to fade, there were no dry hits and thanks to the nic-salts the vapour was smooth all the way to the end.

Let’s talk about each flavour…

Mung Bean Ice

I’m not sure what Mung Bean tastes like. However, I do know, if this flavour tastes anything like Mung Bean, I like it! I think it tastes like cucumber, it is very refreshing. The hint of Ice (menthol) compliments the refreshing flavour, very well.

Blueberry Burst

This little beauty is mouth wateringly good, it actually tastes like blueberries. There isn’t any menthol in this flavour but it is refreshing enough without it.

Ice Litchi (Lychee)

This flavour isn’t the most prominent. Having never tasted Lychee, I went to my local store and bought some. I think they taste a lot like grapes but the flavour of these quite large berries, isn’t a very prominent flavour anyway, so this flavour, still gets top marks from me.

Ice Coffee

About 5-6 years ago, there was loads of shops trying to sell E-liquid, with vaping in its very early stages, the only vape juice shops were selling (excluding vapes shops, which were far and few between) were Coffee and Tobacco with maybe the odd berry or menthol flavour.

This flavour reminds me of those times, it tastes very similar to the typical, traditional coffee/cappuccino flavours. I wasn’t and I am still not a fan of those flavours.

However I do like this one, not only do you not get the tickly throat hit of a normal 18mg freebase nicotine, it tastes a little bit creamier but the biggest improvement of them all, is the Ice.

The menthol makes the flavour above and beyond standard coffee flavours, it is much more refreshing. I’m very impressed.

Flue-Cured Tobacco

My first impressions of this flavour? It’s not as prominent as other flavours in the range or the other tobacco flavours I’ve tried lately. However, the more I puffed on the stick, the more I liked it. The flavour seemed to become more prominent and it does taste rather like a caramel-ly/creamy cigarette.

I suppose not everyone will understand what I mean by that reference, but different tobaccos have a slightly a different taste and some do taste rather caramel-ly.

If you don’t know what I’m on about, do not go and try cigarettes to find a caramel tasting cigarette. They don’t actually taste like a piece of caramel.

Taki Mini Battery | Device Life

Here we are again, with counter in hand, I got to work.

The general consensus from these devices isn’t all that good in relation to the advertised expectations. It is advertised that the devices will provide upto 400 Puffs.

Here’s what they achieved…

The Mung Bean Ice gave up just after what I expected to be half way through. Providing a decent but unexpectedly low 266 Puffs.

The Blueberry Burst, didn’t even manage to get that far, failing on me at 247 Puffs.

As my expectations dropped, so did the lifespan, here lies the Lychee Ice, after 228 Puffs

The Ice Coffee pulled the average expectation back up when it lasted to 259 Puff.

I’ve saved the last bit of the Tobacco device, so I can use it to demonstrate the systems on my video review.

To save you reaching for your calculator, the average puff count of the devices is a, quite disappointing 250 Puffs.

In general I don’t think that is bad going, however it is quite shameful, that the devices are advertised to provide 400 Puffs.

When the device is exhausted the Blue LED indicator flashes several times.

Vapour Production & Airflow

These devices do a great job at replicating a cigarette, the vapour production and airflow are pretty perfect.

Final Verdict

I’ve really enjoyed using the Taki Mini devices. No faffing, what you see, is what you get. They are nothing fancy. And if you’re looking a disposable cig-alike or want to try a low powered vape with plenty of nicotine, you can’t go wrong with these devices.