Where Flavor Wheels Fail & A Live Tasting | #PSC 234
OVERVIEW: Episode 234 of #PodSaveChocolate takes another look at flavor wheels and the OG mistakes that all modern wheels copy. PLUS a live tasting of four – new to me - bars.
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Episode 234
If you’ve been following PodSaveChocolate and TheChocolateLife::LIVE, you know I think about flavor a lot. Most recently my thoughts are part of a larger research effort to understand how chocolate is classified compared with beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cheese. (In this grouping, chocolate and cheese are the most alike.)
I have become increasingly convinced that one thing holding chocolate appreciation and connoisseurship back is that there is no widely accepted framework for thinking about chocolate flavor that is based on first principles.
Many of the popular approaches to visualizing taste have been influenced by the wine wheel introduced by Ann Noble in 1984. Beer, spirits, and cheese (not shown here) and coffee and chocolate (shown in this post) have built visualizations from the wine foundation.
I will be exploring the OG wine flavor classification “mistakes” and how they have been replicated across other domains, as I taste four chocolate bars:
- Wildwood Chocolate’s Fennel Pollen Caramel
- Manoa Chocolate’s Manakō Mango (from the Flavors of Hawai'i series)
- Dandelion Chocolate’s 70% Zorzal Comunitario
- And ... the just released Askinosie 65% Dark + Sichuan Chili Oil collaBARation with Fly By Jing.
The first three bars are available at a local bakery; the Askinosie was sent to me. I will not have tasted any of these bars in advance of the episode.
Representative Wheels – Flavor Viz Falling Short
[L]: Wine flavor wheel. [R]: Specialty Coffee Association flavor wheel.
Cocoa of Excellence current wheel and how how it is used in judging.
Hidden Persuaders in Cocoa and Chocolate was launched in February 2018. [L]: For professionals. [R]: For consumers.
[L]: Chocolatras chocolate flavor wheel; [R] beanstalkr flavor wheel.
Alternatives to Wheels
How the IICCT visualizes flavors. [L]: Positive flavor attributes. [C] The bridge from chemistry to experience and association. [R]: Another take entirely.
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