Explore the Flavors of Your Coffee With This Tasting Wheel
Sweet. Floral. Nuts. Baristas and coffee lovers often use these words – and many others – to describe the flavor nuances of different coffees. The Flavor Wheel, presented below from the Specialty Coffee Association of America, groups different flavor descriptions into levels on the wheel.
The wheel is based on three years of scientific research and collaboration from the specialty coffee community. Although the drawing does not describe each flavor, but rather identifies them in a hierarchy, you can use it to narrow down the flavor you experience in a cup of coffee (or perhaps other drinks and dishes). For example, is it more fried or sour? If roasted, does it have a cereal flavor or is it more roasted? If it’s a burnt roast smell, is it smoky or ashy? It would be fun to use the wheel while tasting the coffee, as the roaster describes.
The wheel will be available for purchase as a poster in February, but you can print the version below.
Inventing the (flavor) wheel: industry collaborates to define coffee flavor attributes | Chronicle of Specialty Coffee via Mark @ CoffeeGeek