Sounds like wire mesh RDA/RTA. Something I might consider doing is stripping the atty down, dunk it in a pan of boiling water. Dry it off and let it air dry for a little. Put a build on it then but do not wick. Run some low and short pulses on it. Bring your coil/mesh up to a nice gentle orange red glow. Once you see that your glow is even all the way through your coil or mesh you can let it cool and wick it. If you're using cotton wick you might experiment with using rayon instead, or vise versa.
Hope this helps. I've not tried any mesh RDA/RTA yet but figure some general advice is that across most atties. From the sounds of to me, there's a burnt in flavor to the atty itself. A good boiling out might help. This happens from time to time & often frustrates many folks. The metal in the atty soaks in the flavor, even the one dry hit flavor. Then, it releases that every time it's used. Boiling gets it hot enough to purge it out of the metal.