A dry hit is when you inhale on your vape and get a hot, vaporized and burnt taste. The key to understanding dry hits really comes from the difference between cigarettes and vape kits. When you’re smoking, your cigarette has a fairly limited number of puffs in it. This means you typically smoke faster to get the most out of it before it burns down. When you’re using a vape, even a small disposable kit will typically give you at least 400 puffs before it runs out.

When you vape too quickly, as you might a cigarette, you’ll be heating the e-liquid in the wicking material and inhaling it away very quickly. The coils inside disposable vape kits are very small compared to more advanced options which means that the cotton takes a little longer to resituate between puffs. Essentially, you can pace yourself more with a vape but also need to be more aware of when you’ve satisfied that nicotine craving rather than just puffing for the sake of it. When you inhale too quickly without leaving much time between each puff, you can dry the cotton wicking out meaning there’s no juice to heat up before your next inhale. So, your battery heats the metal which makes the cotton hot. When there’s no vape juice to evaporate, the dry cotton gets a bit singed and gives you that dry, metallic taste when you inhale.