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Royal New York
Learn with The Lab: Coffee Flavor Wheel & Sensory Lexicon
Sensory is the common thread among all coffee skills taught at the RNY Lab. If you haven’t learned how to taste critically, honestly, and in an organized manner, then it’s nearly impossible to find the flavors and executions you look for in your coffee. To help you hone your palate and enhance these abilities, we’ve added a new course to the calendar: Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel & the Sensory Lexicon Workshop! RNY Lab guest educator Stevyn Pivalsky of CoLabOps explains what this course is and why it’s important to help you better understand your offerings.
Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel & Sensory Lexicon Workshop
We teach barista, roasting, and brewing courses, however, there is one thing we teach across all of these classes: we teach sensory!
It’s important for sensory to be the common thread running through all of the coffee skills we teach. Without sensory skills, it’s difficult to hone in on a specific note or achieve the desired result in the final cup.
Fortunately, many intelligent and organized people have done a lot of work to make this part of our lives easier! One of the most powerful tools these palate pioneers have bequeathed unto us is the SCA Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel.
What is the coffee flavor wheel?
Originally, the aforementioned palate pioneers launched the Flavor Wheel in 1995. Then, in 2016, it evolved into what we use today. Now, the Coffee Flavor Wheel is your one-stop shop for commonly agreed upon attributes found in specialty coffee.
Aside from being your guide of what you’ll likely find sipping and slurping, the Flavor Wheel is also incredibly organized. In fact, it’s categorized in a way that really helps beginners. Novice tasters can use the Flavor Wheel to explore broad flavors in the middle and gradually work their way out towards more specific ones. For example, does the coffee taste fruity? If so, what kind of fruit? A berry? What kind of berry? Oh, blueberry! Tasters can use this method with any of the nine, broad categories. As you develop your sensory skills, you will work your way toward more and more specific flavors.
How do we define these flavors?
World Coffee Research had the same question! So, they worked with The Sensory Analysis Center at Kansas State University. After collaborating, they created the Sensory Lexicon. The Lexicon is a comprehensive list of 110 flavors, textures, and aromas present in coffee. Furthermore, this list has specific and easily obtainable references (in the US, anyway).
Final Thoughts
While the flavor wheel is an efficient and organized tool, it can be daunting. Therefore, we love to take the time to acquire as many of these references as possible. This allows us to create a tasting experience, as well as a cross section of coffees with similar attributes.
The Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel & the Sensory Lexicon Workshop will allow us to do just that. We’ll be in a laid back, conversational environment with our skilled team and peers looking to dive into the world of sensory, without needing to be a sommelier! The course will take place on Monday, August 19th, from 9a–5p. Explore the world of sensory with us, and please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.
