Understanding Coffee Flavors: How to Use the Coffee Flavor Wheel Tutorial

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FrontStreet Coffee - How to Use the Coffee Flavor Wheel

Step 1: Overview of the Flavor Wheel

The flavor wheel is not only practical but also aesthetically pleasing, just like a good cup of coffee. It comprehensively describes coffee flavors. First, browse through these flavor descriptions and absorb these words. You might see some unfamiliar terms, but that's okay—we'll discuss this part later. For now, let's look at the flavors written on this chart!

Step 2: Taste the Coffee

The flavor wheel can be applied to both informal and professional coffee cupping. In any situation, the key to cupping is to taste the coffee intuitively, prepare the cupping procedure rigorously, and experience the coffee from different aspects: the dry aroma after grinding, the wet aroma after adding water, and the flavors perceived when slurping. We define "flavor" as the combination perceived by taste and smell receptors. The flavor wheel includes both taste (perceived by the tongue) and aroma (perceived by the nasal cavity) sensations. However, most of what we taste is a mixed sensation, such as the sourness and aroma of lemon, sweetness, bitterness, and special aromas. Remember the coffee flavors you've tasted, then return to the flavor wheel.

Step 3: Start from the Center of the Flavor Wheel

First, look from the center of the flavor wheel outward—more general descriptions are closer to the center, while more precise descriptions are toward the outer edge. When using it, you can stop at any point on the flavor wheel as you wish; the further outward you look, the more specific and precise the flavor descriptions will be. For example, when tasting Ethiopian coffee, you might detect fruity flavors. At this point, look toward the "fruity" section. You might have different descriptive words: does "fruity" mean berries? dried fruits? citrus? or other fruits? If you choose citrus fruits, there will be more specific descriptions like grapefruit, orange, lemon, or lime. Once you've identified a flavor, return to the center of the flavor wheel and start again to find another flavor you've tasted, repeating this process until everyone agrees that the coffee's flavors have been thoroughly described. This is the basic function of the flavor wheel and is very easy to use. However, the flavor wheel offers more than this—professional users can utilize it further.

Step 4: Reading the Words

The coffee flavor wheel is drawn based on the "Coffee Sensory Dictionary" compiled by World Coffee Research, allowing users to appreciate coffee based on scientific evidence. Even though many people may not use it to train their palate, this dictionary can still assist everyone in using the flavor wheel. Each flavor characteristic has its definition and source, allowing users to examine specific words. The flavor wheel and sensory dictionary work well together, and if needed, you can trace the source of words. The dictionary is not only a tool for training us to describe flavors but also excellent reference material for professional cuppers. Although there are many unfamiliar chemical or technical terms, they all have clear explanations and sources.

Step 5: Refer to Flavor Sources

Each WCR word has corresponding source material, much of which consists of resources easily accessible in daily life, such as supermarkets or online. However, remember that aromas cannot be observed, while flavors might be, so you must increase your connection between aromas and flavors by tasting and smelling coffee. It's recommended to smell from a cup to concentrate the aroma, note what you feel, and then connect the flavors you've experienced through recall.

Step 6: Return to the Center of the Flavor Wheel

As you become more familiar with the words in the dictionary (sometimes quoting one or two additional terms), taste the coffee and return to the center of the flavor wheel to describe the flavor using a specific word. Then look at adjacent words, and you'll notice that the distances between words on the chart are not uniform. If two words are connected on the chart, it means professional cuppers consider them closely related in attributes; if there's space between them, it means cuppers don't consider them strongly related. To extend this further, if there's larger space in the middle of the flavor wheel, it represents lower correlation between categories; this can be very helpful for cuppers when describing flavors during palate calibration, or for helping most people understand the flavors you're describing.

If two words are closely arranged, it represents high flavor correlation; if there's space, it represents low correlation between the words.

Step 7: Use Your Own Descriptions

The advantage of using these tools is that they can become a common language for cupping. Coffee professionals can understand and use the descriptions on the flavor wheel. Having it in cupping rooms or coffee shops allows for communication using a common method. Although it's good to describe as much as possible, this increases communication difficulty. Therefore, focusing on a common language is what we pursue when discussing coffee.

Step 8: Study the Colors on the Chart

Our visual senses have strong connections with other senses. The appearance of food affects our associations with its taste, which is why we often use visual terms to describe flavors: we might describe a coffee as tasting "bright" or using colors like "red" or "green." Due to this discovery, we paid special attention to the colors on the flavor wheel, trying to connect them with the color properties of each word. This might help hesitant cuppers find a description. If a cupper can only express that "it tastes like some kind of red fruit," they can look at the red section of the flavor wheel. "Some kind of brown food" would guide the cupper to the left side of the flavor wheel, where they might find stimulating spice or grain flavors.

In Summary

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