The coffee flavour wheel
Nine flavour families and the 93 tasting notes beneath them: a shared set of words for what’s in your cup.
What is a coffee flavour wheel?
A coffee flavour wheel, or flavor wheel in American spelling, arranges the words tasters use for coffee in a circle. Broad families sit in the middle, and each one divides into more specific notes around the outside.
It exists because flavour is hard to put into words. Given a list to choose from, it’s much easier to say what you taste, and to compare your notes with anyone else’s: a roaster’s, a barista’s or your own from last month.
How to use it
- Start in the middle. Take a sip and pick the broad family first. Is it fruity? Sweet? Roasted? Don’t look for detail yet.
- Move outwards. Within that family, look for something more specific: Fruity might become Berry, and Berry might become Blackberry.
- Stop when you’re unsure. A family on its own is a good answer. A precise note you can’t really taste teaches you less.
- Pick more than one. Most coffees show a few families at once: Caramel from Sweet alongside Citrus Fruit from Fruity, say.
- Use the whole wheel. Not every note is a compliment. Stale, Cardboard, Ashy and Under Ripe name faults, which helps when a coffee disappoints and you want to know why.
New to tasting? How to taste coffee covers the rest: smelling, slurping, and what to notice before you reach for the wheel.
The nine families and 93 notes
In the order the wheel draws them, clockwise from the top.
Nutty/Cocoa5 notes
From dark chocolate to almond and peanut: the familiar, comforting end of the wheel.
- Dark Chocolate
- Chocolate
- Almond
- Hazelnut
- Peanuts
Sweet9 notes
Sugars and sweet aromas, like brown sugar, honey, caramel and maple syrup.
- Brown Sugar
- Honey
- Caramel
- Vanilla
- Vanillin
- Overall Sweet
- Sweet Aromatics
- Maple Syrup
- Molasses
Floral4 notes
Delicate, perfumed aromas such as jasmine, rose and chamomile, and the lightness of black tea.
- Black Tea
- Jasmine
- Rose
- Chamomile
Fruity18 notes
Fresh and dried fruit, from citrus and berries to apple, cherry, prune and raisin.
- Citrus Fruit
- Other Fruit
- Dried Fruit
- Berry
- Pear
- Peach
- Apple
- Grape
- Pineapple
- Pomegranate
- Cherry
- Coconut
- Prune
- Raisin
- Strawberry
- Blueberry
- Raspberry
- Blackberry
Roasted10 notes
What the roast adds: cereal, grain and malt at one end, smoke, ash and burnt at the other.
- Cereal
- Burnt
- Tobacco
- Pipe Tobacco
- Acrid
- Ashy
- Smoky
- Brown, Roast
- Grain
- Malt
Spices7 notes
Warm brown spices such as cinnamon, clove and nutmeg, with pepper and anise.
- Brown Spice
- Pepper
- Pungent
- Clove
- Cinnamon
- Nutmeg
- Anise
Other18 notes
Mostly flavours you don’t want: papery, musty, chemical or medicinal notes that point to stale beans or a defect, alongside plain bitter and salty.
- Chemical
- Papery/Musty
- Stale
- Cardboard
- Papery
- Woody
- Moldy/Damp
- Musty/Dusty
- Musty/Earthy
- Animalic
- Meaty/Brothy
- Phenolic
- Bitter
- Salty
- Medicinal
- Petroleum
- Skunky
- Rubber
Green/Vegetative10 notes
Fresh, grassy and herbal notes, and the raw, beany taste of coffee that is under-roasted.
- Beany
- Raw
- Olive Oil
- Under Ripe
- Peapod
- Fresh
- Dark Green
- Vegetative
- Hay-Like
- Herb-Like
Sour/Fermented12 notes
Acids and fermentation. A little reads as brightness; more turns winey, boozy or vinegary.
- Sour
- Alcohol Fermented
- Over-ripe
- Fermented
- Whiskey
- Winey
- Malic Acid
- Citric Acid
- Isovaleric
- Butyric Acid
- Acetic Acid
- Sour Aromatics
Where the wheel comes from
Sip Journal’s flavour families and notes follow the Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) and World Coffee Research (WCR). The app draws them in two rings rather than three, and the wheel on this page is our own drawing of the app’s list, not the SCA’s artwork. Sip Journal is not affiliated with the SCA or WCR.
Keep a tasting journal.
Sip Journal puts this wheel on your phone: tap a family, then its notes, for every coffee you taste.
Free