The Vape Lab

Nice shop in Shoreditch!
They sell all type of great liquids for vaping.
The laid back atmosphere is great. Nice café built in. Big sitting areas to read a book, surf the web of chat with the local knowledge.
I had an issue with the pricing. It was very expensive considering what you are getting. I found they lacked serious brands I would expect.
Left empty handed unfortunately.

A great relaxed vibe, good coffee and a great selection of e-​liquids and vaping kits.
(Can someone explain to me why Emma — previous reviewer — bothered putting up a two star review, bearing in mind her initial prejudice?)
The e-​liquid is pretty pricey — £7 for ten ml of 24 — but the ability to have a try of various flavours is a real bonus. There’s not a massive amount of seating and you do tend to get a lot of the «I’ve rigged my vaper to produce clouds and clouds of vapour» types in there trying to apparently outdo each other.
The staff are all really friendly and willing to help — although, being Shoreditch high-​street, they are clearly cooler™ than thee or me.
All-​in-​all, worth popping in.

I should preface this review by telling you that I detest cigarette smoke, so I was a bit dubious about going into an e-​cigarette shop to have a drink. My friend wanted to see what it was all about, so we went in to try the coffee. I actually had a chilled Chai Tea Latte (fancy words for cinnamon milk!) and my friend tried the chilled coffee.
They called the place a ‘lab’ and then worked two elements into the theme — 1. there are lab coats hanging up on the wall, and 2. drinks are served in large conical lab flasks. I actually think that it is a poor effort and I could have helped them think up many many more ways to get ‘lab’ into the experience. Conical beakers would not have been one of them. I get annoyed with places that try to self consciously offer you something other than mugs to drink coffee out of. Bowls, yoghurt pots, flower pots, glasses, rolling pins… nothing beats a good old fashioned mug.
Anyway, the cinnamon milk was jolly nice, even though it was semi-​skimmed. What was less enjoyable was the weird vapour that seemed to crawl around us from the coughing and spluttering guys at the ‘Vape’ bar who were too sissy for real cigarettes, but were trying to look cool by inhaling apple & pear flavoured steam. By the time I left (not too long after they started making arses of themselves) I smelt like I’d been rolling around in an orchard — better than old cigarette smoke, I admit, but still, not as nice as my perfume that I paid so much money for.
On the way out we spotted a BitCoin ATM. We stopped and chatted to some guy who was in charge of the thing — it was quite interesting and also perhaps useful to note (in case you have some down the back of the sofa) that you can pay for your drinks and e-​cigarettes in BitCoins there.

This is one of those nice and fortuitous experiences where I was searching for something, and there, there is appeared.
I had about an hour to kill before a meeting and I needed a place in East London to get some work done. I always try to find a nice independent shop, but will hop in a chain if I have to. Not today! Today, I found the Vape Lab.
Part coffee shop, part vaporizer hut, this spot is Shoreditch in a nutshell.
To start, you have to like that soft, fruity Shisha-​like smell. You do, and you’ll be in heaven. You don’t, and you should move on. I happen to like it, so sitting there getting work done was actually quite pleasant.
It’s a small shop with a few very comfortable seats and tables, this is a place for relaxing after all. In the back is a counter divided in two. On the left, you order your coffees — basic things: cappuccinos, lattes, teas, etc. On the right is the vaporizer section, with starter kits all the way down to the experienced. If you don’t know what you want or what you want to try, they’ll walk you through everything.
I stayed away from the left, only because I did need to get work done. The coffee I got was nice though, nothing fancy but well made. But I’ve actually never tried a vaporizer and have always been curious if it’s as smooth as they say. I think I’ll be back to give it another go.