How Many Flavors Does the Coffee Flavor Wheel Have? Can You Imagine? Reasons Behind the 2014 Coffee Flavor Wheel Update

FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to the Coffee Flavor Wheel

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The Coffee Flavor Wheel serves as the primary reference for "aroma and taste" in the coffee industry, with particularly profound influence on the entire coffee sector, especially in defining specialty and quality coffee, guiding the industry's development direction.

In 2014, the renowned American coffee institution "Counter Culture Coffee" released this new version of the Coffee Flavor Wheel based on the SCAA Flavor Wheel.

These 85 flavor characteristics were developed through collaboration between SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) and Kansas State University and Texas A&M University. The original intention was to establish a unified, quantitative language for describing the flavors of different coffee varieties during tasting, thereby enhancing the scientific nature and comparability of coffee evaluation.

Right Side:

This section primarily covers the classification and formation causes of coffee flavor aromas.

Left Side:

This section addresses changes caused by external environmental factors (such as cleanliness, humidity, etc.) during the storage process of green beans, as well as flavors produced during the roasting process based on whether temperatures are appropriate.

Coffee beans contain as many as 1,200 compounds, which bring rich taste and olfactory sensations. Bitterness is just one of these flavors.

How rich are 1,200 compounds? Let's take chocolate and wine, which are popularly enjoyed, as examples:

Chocolate: Contains over 300 compounds.

Wine: Contains 150 to 500+ compounds, which have already made people fall in love with the surprises brought by different varieties.

Coffee's 1,200+ compounds are 4 times more than chocolate and more than double that of wine.

These 85 coffee flavors don't represent 85 different types of coffee, but rather the different flavors that emerge during coffee's cultivation, processing, and roasting, influenced by environmental factors, genetics, processing methods, storage and transportation, roasting degree, and the roaster's skill. Coffee flavors are actually complex and multi-layered.

Knowledge Point: The renowned American Counter Culture Coffee introduced a new Coffee Tasters Flavor Wheel, which is based on the traditional SCAA version but is more contemporary and better suited to current styles.

In Summary:

FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research establishment dedicated to sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. We share everything without reservation simply to help more friends fall in love with coffee. Additionally, we hold three low-discount coffee events monthly, because FrontStreet Coffee wants to let more friends enjoy the best coffee at the lowest possible price—this has been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for the past 6 years!

Important Notice :

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