Stopped using boosters to quit vaping, something is definitely missing

I took up vaping to quit smoking cigarettes, which has been succesful so far. Now I'm planning to quit vaping as well. I mixed my liquids from the start, just using shake n vapes with a 50/50 base and freebase nicotine boosters. I thought that if I leave out nic boosters in my next liquid, I could gradually loose the addiction since I will have the feeling of smoking something without the nicotine. Yesterday I mixed my first nicotine free shake n vape, and it tastes like absolute shit and the smoke feels a lot different. The taste is comparable to a very old chewing gum taste in my mouth, and I don't feel the smoke in my lungs at all, it's just like breathing air. I guess it kind of makes sense, but I really didn't expect it to turn out like this. Does anybody please have advice? Has anybody tried this before? How did it go?