Ok, so my little experiment had no controls. It probably had a hundred extraneous variables, and likely experimenter bias, but here is MY conclusion.
First, lets discuss why I even tried out the Caffe Latex. My friends at Scwalbe sent me a pair of the tubeless ready (430gram) Rocket Rons, these weren't the heavier UST version. The tubeless ready needs a sealant to hold air. No big deal, I would have used a sealant anyways. The 2.25 that I mounted on the front went on, and sealed with Stans without any issues, but the 2.1 that I mounted on the rear gave me a multitude of trouble. I had a heck of a time getting it to seat. I finally thought it seated ok only to wake up the next day with it bleeding stan's all over the floor. I then filled it with air again and it seated easily the second time around, so I thought. I rode it on a warmup ride the night before Bone Bender and all seemed well. So I get to Bone Bender and ride around a bit before I place my bike in the staging area, but when I start my first lap the tire is flat! I ride a friends bike for the first lap and he blast my tire with CO2 which takes hold and the tire does fine for the rest of the race.
I return home and a friend talked me into trying Caffe Latex, which foams up to force the coagulant throughout the inner surface of the tire, therefore making the initial seating process more efficient. Additionally, It's supposed to heal sidewall tears better.
I must say the tire mounted and sealed pretty easily, I rode it for a weak until I tore the paper thin sidewall on a prelap at Neosho. The tear was not very big , maybe 6 mm? Anyway, the Caffe Latex bled out without slowing the airloss at all. So I boot the tire and the Latex just reacts with my glue and the boot comes out with sealant blood everywhere. I then reboot again and use Stan's this time. The tire seals ok and the Stan's holds. To make this story shorter, the boot doesn't hold and pops in the middle, but the Stan's fills the gap enough that I limp home. So I go home and double boot the tear with a Park Patch kit, and a park emergency boot with shoe goo around the edges, and Stan's. It is holding air fine now.
What I noticed between the two sealants was that Stans has small gritty particles in it, to help plug the hole as it coagulates, whereas the Latex doesn't. The latex felt stickier than the Stan's to the touch, but it felt thin. When I cleaned the tires between sealant changes, the Stan's seemed to have bonded to the tire better than the Latex. The Latex peeled off of the tire much easier than the Stan's. Also the Stan's didn't react to my patch glue, whereas the Caffe Latex reacts to everything, including Stan's residue.
The idea of the Caffe Latex foaming is appealing, but with its lack of plugging such a small sidewall tear turned me off of it pretty quickly.
If anyone has any success, or horror stories from either of these sealants, please feel free to comment. I have my settings so that you don't need an account, nor do you need to be logged in, to comment on my blog.
When I'm not feeling so lazy I may do a full on experiment with these two sealants, I will be more stringent with my scientific method. But, for now I'm sticking with the Stan's.
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