How to Understand the Latest Coffee Flavor Wheel? How to Identify Coffee Described Flavors

As an authoritative coffee flavor guide, the flavor wheel allows newcomers to quickly categorize the flavors presented in coffee when used properly. Once learned and combined with practice, mastering coffee flavors becomes virtually certain.

Of course, it's essential to understand the coffee flavor wheel correctly. So FrontStreet Coffee's mini-class begins today! Let me simply guide you through how to appreciate this colorful chart!

1. Flavor Wheel Illustration

The image below is a flavor wheel created by SCAA, combining two ancient versions into a completely new version. It can identify 85 analogy flavor categories, five fewer than the old version (which identified 90 flavors), concentrating negative flavors and distinguishing more positive flavors in detail.

The flavor wheel has three rings: inner, middle, and outer. Their relationship is like the table of contents in an illustrated guidebook - first find the category from the inner ring, then identify the category distinctions in the middle ring, and finally细分到 each specific flavor individual. The inner ring serves as an outline of categories with nine main types: herbal/plant, sour/fermented, fruity, floral, sweet, nutty/cocoa, spicy, roasted, and other.

The middle ring distinguishes different types within categories. For example, the fruity category in the inner ring is divided in the middle ring into berries, dried fruits, other fruit families, and citrus plants.

Finally, there's the outer ring that breaks down into specifics. For instance, citrus plants in the middle ring will be divided in the outer ring into distinctive individuals like grapefruit, orange, lemon, and lime. The floral category is special - besides various colored flowers, it also includes black tea. When you taste black tea notes in coffee, it actually belongs to the floral category.

Once we understand the relationship between each ring, we can try to use it to train our senses when tasting food, categorizing flavors according to the flavor wheel. This way, when drinking coffee, we can more systematically distinguish flavors. For example, if you taste sourness in a cup of coffee, then we start with the sour category (inner ring) - is it fruit sour, or more like lactic drinks or vinegar?

If it points to fruit sourness, then search within the fruit middle ring. For instance, if it has higher acidity with some fresh sour fragrance, it might be citrus. Or if it has higher sweetness with some sourness, it's very likely the berry category. Once you've made your choice, you can make the final distinction - which specific flavor does this sourness belong to? For example, citrus, orange, or grapefruit - in practice, these are relatively distinct differences.

2. Colors as Association Objects

Each color on this flavor wheel has been carefully selected by the London creative agency One Darnley Road, designed to make people immediately associate the color with corresponding concrete flavors. For example, white jasmine flowers, orange oranges, pink grapefruit. They connect colors well with aromas. For instance, some flavor descriptions we often see: "white floral fragrance." This actually refers to elegant, fresh floral notes similar to jasmine.

Then flavors in other categories tend toward negative tastes. So colors like blue and gray, which don't look like food, were used.

3. Two Hidden Details of the Flavor Wheel

The first comes from the gaps in the outer ring. We can determine whether their relationships are similar based on the space between two concrete flavors. For example, roses and jasmine, both belonging to the floral category, have relatively dense spacing with low distinguishability between them; while roses and chamomile have wider spacing because these two flavors are easily distinguished and separated. From this, we can see their flavor similarity.

The second is roast level. Besides other categories appearing at various roast degrees, the flavor arrangement from floral to sweet forms a cycle from light to dark roast. For example, categories like flowers, fruits, and sour notes mostly appear in light roast and medium-light roast categories; spices, nuts, and roasted products more often appear in medium, medium-dark, and dark roast flavors that have undergone caramelization reactions, while sweet flavors occupy a significant portion in both.

Understanding the flavor wheel doesn't immediately mean you can learn to taste coffee flavors - it only helps you organize the general relationships between flavors in coffee. Moreover, the flavors we can taste go far beyond these. Since most flavor wheel flavors depend on Western countries, cultural differences can lead to cognitive barriers for some flavors. For example, the "longan" flavor we often perceive is relatively difficult for foreigners to taste.

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