Overview:
- Introduction
- What is a Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel?
- How To Use the Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel
- Tips to Develop Your Coffee Palate
Introduction
When you buy a bag of coffee beans, you will always find on the label a range of tasting notes, from chocolate to almonds and even mango or strawberry. But for some people, when they take their first sip, all they taste is… coffee. To fully appreciate the complex flavors that coffee brings, it’s crucial to develop your coffee palate, which will help you identify the nuanced notes. One way to improve your coffee palate is to use a Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel, an essential resource in the coffee industry. It’s typically used during coffee cupping sessions, but home brewers can use the flavor wheel at home to familiarize themselves with different kinds of coffee.
What is a Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel?
As you might have figured out, a Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel contains the spectrum of tasting notes one might get in coffee. You’ll spot the usual flavors like dark chocolate and molasses, but you’ll also see more interesting ones like petroleum and cardboard (yes, we’re not kidding!). It’s particularly useful for coffee consumers and professionals to have a common language of descriptors for coffee. This resource was developed by the Specialty Coffee Association of America and World Coffee Research in 1995 and remains the industry standard until today.
How To Use the Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel
To use the flavor wheel, first start at the center: the innermost ring contains the most general taste descriptors, like nutty, fruity, and floral. Once you identify the general note, you can then move outwards towards more specific descriptors. The colors in the wheel also provide visual cues, like associating fruits with bright, vibrant colors or nutty and chocolatey notes with brown.
For example, when tasting your coffee you might first identify some fruitiness. Moving to the second ring, you can then narrow it down even further: Does the fruitiness resemble berries, or is it more like citrusy fruits? If you choose citrus, you can then pinpoint in the third ring which kind of citrus fruit, whether the flavor is more similar to a grapefruit, orange, lemon, or lime. And there you have it! You’ve successfully used the flavor wheel to identify the coffee’s tasting notes.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to limit yourself to the flavor notes shown on the wheel. While it offers a wide range, many of the references are based on Western tastes. Feel free to connect flavors to something more familiar from your own region or even personal memories, because taste is deeply subjective and cultural.
The SCAA also recommends taking it further by using the World Coffee Research Sensory Lexicon to identify other sensory characteristics, including texture and aroma.
Tips To Improve Your Coffee Palate
Like any skill, it takes time and experience to refine your coffee palate. Here are a few exercises you can practice:
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Explore different varieties of coffee. To refine your coffee palate, it’s important to, of course, drink more coffee! And we don’t mean just drinking your go-to coffee more often. Try different kinds of coffee to broaden your palate.
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Activate your sense of smell. Your sense of smell plays a huge role in what you taste. Be mindful of the coffee’s aromas at different stages: before brewing, during brewing, and before taking your first sip.
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Build your references. It’s difficult to identify tasting notes if you’ve never tried the actual reference. Become familiar with other foods, like pomegranate, malt, and jasmine.
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Try triangulation practices. To triangulate coffee, prepare three cups labeled A, B, and C. Two cups will contain the same coffee, while one will contain a different kind. The point is to smell and taste each cup, then identify which is the odd one out. The more similar the coffees are, the more difficult this is to do. You can ramp up the difficulty of this exercise depending on how refined your palate is.
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Keep a coffee journal. Record your progress by writing down what you’re tasting in detail. This practice helps you to increase your awareness and taste more actively.
Our Coffee Tasting & Cupping Workshop is a comprehensive experience to test and improve your palate! The workshop lets you try our range of beans at Plain Sight Coffee, which you can identify using the Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel. Coffee novices, home brewers, and pros are all welcome to participate!
