The free SCA flavor wheel poster

The Specialty Coffee Association's Coffee Taster's Flavor Wheel is the global sensory reference for specialty coffee. First published in 1995 and redesigned in 2016 in partnership with World Coffee Research, it organizes 110 flavor attributes into 9 top-level categories — from Floral and Fruity through Roasted, Spices, and Sweet. Inner rings are general; outer rings get specific. The closer two flavors sit on the wheel, the more often tasters confuse them — the layout itself is data.

Roasters, Q Graders, and café trainers use the wheel as a shared vocabulary on the cupping table. Instead of "fruity," you can say "stone fruit > peach." Instead of "spicy," you can say "brown spice > clove." The wheel is what makes a tasting note portable between two people who have never tasted the same coffee.

How to use this poster

• Pin it above the cupping table — tasters point at descriptors during calibration.
• Print it for SCA / Q Grader training sessions — the layout is identical to the official 2016 wheel.
• Use it in green-buying conversations — show the importer exactly which sub-categories you're chasing.
• Hand it to new baristas — faster than any vocabulary list.