Updated: Where Flavor Wheels Fail & A Live Tasting | #PSC 234

By Clay Gordon | 11 days ago | | 7 min read

Original background photo: Mishaal Zahed (Meschael Zahède) / Unsplash

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.

Timing and Links to Watch & Comment

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Episode 234 streamed on Friday, September 25th, 2026.

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Episode 234 Topic Overview

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 Slow Burn 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.

Before We Begin: What Is Flavor, Anyway?

Flavor is the overall sensory experience we perceive when consuming food or drink. It’s a complex phenomenon that combines multiple senses working together, not just taste alone.

Main Components of Flavor

Taste (Gustation) This occurs on your tongue through taste buds. There are five basic tastes:

Sweet, Salty. Sour. Bitter, and Umami.

Smell (Olfaction) – This is the dominant component of flavor, contributing roughly 75-90% of what we perceive as “flavor”:

Orthonasal olfaction - smelling food through your nose before eating
Retronasal olfaction - aromas traveling from your mouth up through the nasal cavity while chewing

Texture/Mouthfeel – Physical sensations detected through touch receptors:

Creaminess, crunchiness, chewiness, viscosity
Temperature
Carbonation sensation

Chemical Sensations

Trigeminal nerve activation - burning (capsaicin in chili), cooling (menthol), tingling (carbonation)

Sound

Auditory cues affect perceived flavor - the crunch of chips influences how fresh they seem.

Psychological Factors

Visual appearance (color affects expectation)
Memory and past experiences
Cultural context
Mood and expectations

In sum: Flavor is ...

... fundamentally a multisensory integration process. Your brain combines all these signals into a unified perception. This is why food can taste “bland” when you have a cold - blocked nasal passages prevent retronasal olfaction, removing most of the flavor experience even though your taste buds still work.

Flavor can also be influenced by cognitive factors like packaging, brand, and even the environment where you eat. This is why the same food can taste different in different contexts.

The above section was added after the episode aired for clarity.

Representative Wheels – Where Flavor Viz Falls 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.

Future Episodes

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Tuesday, September 29th
Mr Beast Builds a City to Save Kids from Illegal Labor. Or did he?

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MOVED TO: Tuesday, October 6th
First Look @ the recently announced Certified Ceremonial Cacao certification.

Episode Hashtags

#cocoa #cacao #cacau
#chocolate #chocolat
#PodSaveChoc #PSC
#LaVidaCocoa #TheChocolateLife

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After a year-long+ experiment, the audio-only versions of PodSaveChocolate episodes have been taken down after an end-of-year review. There were not enough listens to continue uploading episodes and paying for hosting.