A Brief Vape Pen History (as we understand it so far)

1960's: The idea of an electronic cigarette is invented. It never gets off the ground.

2003: Chinese pharmacist Hong Lik loses his father to a smoking related disease. It becomes his obsession to find a safer alternative using the electronic cigarette method. The company he works for likes the idea so much they rename themselves Ruyan (如烟, literally "Resembling smoking") and commercializes the ecig worldwide.

2006: The "cartomizer" is invented in Europe, making ecigs larger and more powerful. (source)

2007: Californians learned quickly that they could infuse medicinal herbs into the juice. Hemp activist Patrick Moore bugs his friend Will to come out with an e-cigarette for medical cannabis. The friend, an engineer who helped develop GPS and other groundbreaking invention, creates the "Vape-Pen," which eventually became the Dabbler that we sell today. Vape Pens were distributed to cancer patients in a highly successful program to lessen their symptoms.

2008-2012: Tight on the heels of Vape-Pen, competitors sprang up and created a whole market of cannabis oil pens. We are still filling in the blanks in this record.



Here's where we come in:

Since our inception, people have urged us to create a portable version of our vaporizer. It was a tall order for a company already busy growing its production of high end wooden box vaporizers and their glass accessories. We always pointed to the fact that there was not enough power in  batteries to create the type of hit we get with our box vaporizer. Besides, our simple way of building with attention to every detail was too slow for creating a highly technical product like a handheld vaporizer. Our best vaporizers need size to create their incredible taste. We spread the heat over a relatively large surface to provide the most gentle heating possible for clean tasting vapor. Sweet taste and dense clouds just could not be duplicated using a miniature heater. Any attempts to shrink our design ended up with unimpressive vapor and a scorched taste. Plenty of competitors have created weak and smoky tasting portables- We did not want to be another.

Instead of trying to invent our own glass and ceramic portable we turned our attention on existing manufacturers to see which ones could provide designs that were reasonably safe and chemical free. We would have preferred to have only glass and ceramic in the hottest areas of the vaporizer, but where absolutely necessary, we think metals will do as long as they are inert at the high temperatures needed for vaporizing.

In 2012, Vape-Pen showed us his brand new design for vaporizing waxes and extracts of herbs. He had created a greatly enlarged cartomizer built of heating wire wrapped around a tight bundle of glass fibers. Just like how we require for our own vaporizers, all of the materials in his design were able to handle high temperatures without odor. We joined up with Vape-Pen and brought the groundbreaking "Vaporbrothers Dabbler by Vape-Pen" to the market in the beginning of 2013.  We lent the Dabbler our warranty and customer service, along with a level of quality control unheard of in the vapor pen industry.  Vaporbrothers customers were suddenly enjoying the portability they were asking for.  Dabbler won the designation of "Best Standard Pen" by High Times Magazine (print edition) for 2014. (Their online blog is here although it does not list the winners.)

Close up view of the Vaporbrothers Dabbler Vape Pen heater

Dabbler is definitely a winner. With Vape-Pen's expertise joined with our fanatical attention to inhalation safety Vaporbrothers provides a safe alternative to smoking that tastes great and exceeds many expectations for vapor pens.



If anybody has adjustments to the history as it is presented above, please contact us so we can get your story and update the record if necessary. :) ~Linus



Vaporbrothers