Six Nicotine Pouch Users You'll Meet in KL: A Field Guide

Spend enough time around this product and patterns emerge. Not personality types exactly — more like recognisable behaviours that seem to arrive fully formed about three weeks in.

This is affectionate. Mostly.

For adults 18 and over.

1. The Bulk Buyer

Has never bought a single can in their life. Went straight to the twenty-pack on day one, before establishing whether they liked the flavour, on the grounds that it worked out to RM0.88 a pouch and "that's just maths, bro."

Has a spreadsheet. Genuinely has a spreadsheet. Knows their cost per pouch to two decimal places and will tell you, unprompted, at a wedding.

Their kitchen contains a stack of cans that alarms visiting relatives. They keep the spare ones in the fridge, which is annoyingly correct — it is the right way to store them in this climate.

Weakness: committed to twenty cans of something before finding out they preferred the other one. Should have bought: a variety pack first, like a normal person.

2. The Flavour Tourist

Owns nine open cans. Finishes none of them. Every can is at exactly the four-pouch mark, because they got bored and opened a new one.

Describes pouches the way other people describe wine. Has said the phrase "the finish on this one" out loud, in public, to a friend who did not ask. Once spent eleven minutes explaining why Cherry Noir works with grilled meat.

To be fair to the Flavour Tourist, they are right about most of it, and they are the only person in this list who has actually read the pairing guide.

Weakness: nine half-cans going stale simultaneously. Natural habitat: the new arrivals page, refreshing.

3. The 30mg Legend

Started on Arctic Drift 30mg. Not worked up to it. Started there. Was told not to. Did it anyway.

Spent the first fifteen minutes of their nicotine pouch career sitting very still on a plastic chair outside a mamak, sweating gently, telling everyone they were fine. Has never admitted this happened.

Now genuinely handles it, which is the frustrating part, because it means they cannot be reasoned with. Offers 30mg to visiting friends like a man offering someone a chilli padi with a straight face.

Weakness: the phrase "nah it's nothing, try one". What they should say instead: start at 4mg, for the love of god.

4. The Quiet Professional

Uses Smooth Mint 6mg. Has used Smooth Mint 6mg for fourteen months. Will use Smooth Mint 6mg until the heat death of the universe.

Nobody at their office knows. Not their desk neighbour, not their manager, not the person they have lunch with every single day. They have sat through entire quarterly reviews with one in and contributed thoughtfully throughout.

Keeps a can in the desk drawer, a can in the car, and one in the bag. Has never once run out. Would find the Bulk Buyer's spreadsheet vulgar.

Weakness: none, irritatingly. Quietly winning.

5. The One Who Never Shares

Always has a can. Never opens it in front of you. Performs an elaborate pocket-check pantomime when asked, concluding that they must have left it in the car.

The car is forty metres away. Everyone knows. The friendship continues regardless, held together by a mutual agreement never to mention it.

In their defence, they have done the arithmetic and worked out that at eight pouches a day they are spending about RM240 a month, and that every pouch handed to a colleague at a mamak table is RM1 they are not getting back. In their further defence, the Bulk Buyer told them that figure.

Weakness: the pantomime is not as convincing as they believe. Solution: a second can, kept for public use. RM21. Buy a friendship can.

6. The Convert

Three weeks in. Absolutely insufferable.

Has told you about it. Has told your other friend about it. Has brought it up at a family dinner where it was not relevant, and then explained the difference between a pouch and snus to an uncle who did not ask and does not care.

Uses the word "format". Has opinions about fleece.

Will calm down around month two and become a Quiet Professional, at which point they will be embarrassed about all of this and deny it ever happened. We have all been the Convert. Some of us run nicotine pouch companies now.

Weakness: volume. Prognosis: good, eventually.

So which one are you?

Be honest. The Bulk Buyer thinks they are the Quiet Professional. The Convert is certain they are the Flavour Tourist. Nobody in history has ever self-identified as The One Who Never Shares.

Whichever you are, the practical advice is the same and it is boring: find the lowest strength that actually satisfies you, buy two flavours rather than nine, and keep the spares out of the car. The first 30 days guide covers the rest.

For adults 18+. Nicotine is an addictive substance. Not for non-nicotine users, under-18s, or people who are pregnant or breastfeeding. NOMA is not a smoking cessation product. Please do not actually hand a 30mg pouch to a beginner.