--- title: "How the Coffee Industry Cut Through Jargon With Color" id: "33447" type: "post" slug: "how-the-coffee-industry-cut-through-jargon-with-color" published_at: "2016-05-25T16:10:26+00:00" modified_at: "2026-03-16T16:36:33+00:00" url: "https://associationsnow.com/2016/05/25/how-the-coffee-industry-cut-through-jargon-with-color/" markdown_url: "https://associationsnow.com/2016/05/25/how-the-coffee-industry-cut-through-jargon-with-color.md" excerpt: "The Specialty Coffee Association of America uses its new flavor wheel to get everybody in the supply chain speaking the same language." taxonomy_category: - "Marketing / Communications" taxonomy_post_tag: - "AssociationsNow" - "Business" - "coffee" - "flavor ingredients" - "virtualization" taxonomy_content_format: - "Article" taxonomy_role: - "Association CEO / Executive Director" - "Director" - "Executive Team" taxonomy_persona: - "Industry Professionals" --- [Home](https://associationsnow.com/) » [Articles](https://associationsnow.com/format/article/) » How the Coffee Industry Cut Through Jargon With Color Every industry has its own lingo—terms that are unique to the mechanics of the business. Which is fine, so long as the conversation is limited to a small group of insiders. It’s not so fine for communicating with a lot of different constituencies. That concern sparked the revamp of the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s [Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel (opens in a new tab)](http://www.scaa.org/chronicle/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/SCAA_FlavorWheel.01.18.15.jpg) , a colorful circular representation of the flavor sources for all those coffee terms that can sometimes make you feel like your barista is putting you on: *papery, ashy, nutty, raw*. > The wheel visualizes “the largest and most collaborative piece of research on coffee flavor.” The formation of the wheel has plenty of research and rigor behind it. As SCAA Communications Manager Lily Kubota explained in a blog post, the flavor wheel poster is rooted in the *World Coffee Research Sensory Lexicon*, a book by coffee experts and researchers, produced by SCAA and the nonprofit World Coffee Research that establishes a common language of descriptors for flavors. That book is “the largest and most collaborative piece of research on coffee flavor ever completed,” [Kubota wrote (opens in a new tab)](http://www.scaa.org/chronicle/2016/01/19/reinventing-the-flavor-wheel-industry-collaborates-to-identify-coffee-flavor-attributes/) . But at 50 pages, the *Lexicon*isn’t much to look at. To visualize it, SCAA revisited a [21-year-old color wheel (opens in a new tab)](https://store.scaa.org/products/coffee-tasters-flavor-wheel-1995-english-digital?variant=14732978182) and applied its new definitions of flavors to it. Plenty of lingo and science behind flavor had changed since the ’90s, SCAA’s research showed, so it was worth the update. And when SCAA hired a London design firm, One Darnley Road, to draft the wheel, it made sure the colors were as organically true as possible to what’s being described. “They studied all the colors that oranges [i.e., the fruits] can take, and they found the average orange [i.e., the color],” [SCAA Senior Director Peter Giuliano told Wired (opens in a new tab)](http://www.wired.com/2016/02/taste-coffee-like-a-pro-with-this-gorgeous-flavor-wheel/) . That clarity of representation is important, because the wheel is meant to be easily grasped by everybody in the coffee supply chain, from farmers to roasters to baristas—to even the hard-core coffee achiever. And once everybody agrees on the terms, that frees producers to do more focused experiments with flavors: [As the coffee-culture website Sprudge reported last week (opens in a new tab)](http://sprudge.com/the-science-behind-the-scaa-flavor-wheel-98677.html) , “it opens the doors for controlled tests to determine whether the chemistry inside certain varietals is responsible for specific flavors, or if environmental conditions have a more substantial impact.” And if you just think it looks pretty, SCAA [sells posters of the wheel (opens in a new tab)](https://store.scaa.org/products/the-coffee-tasters-flavor-wheel-poster?variant=18787771718) . (Specialty Coffee Association) [Mark Athitakis](https://associationsnow.com/author/mark-athitakis/) Mark Athitakis, a contributing editor for Associations Now, has written on nonprofits, the arts, and leadership for a variety of publications. He is a coauthor of The Dumbest Moments in Business History and hopes you never qualify for the sequel. [More articles by this author](https://associationsnow.com/author/mark-athitakis/) Tags: [#Business](https://associationsnow.com/tag/business/) [#coffee](https://associationsnow.com/tag/coffee/) [#flavor ingredients](https://associationsnow.com/tag/flavor-ingredients/) [#virtualization](https://associationsnow.com/tag/virtualization/) **Stay Informed** [Subscribe to our free newsletter](https://associationsnow.com/newsletter/) , *Associations Now Daily News*, to find out what’s happening in the association world every business day. ## You Might Like - [VideoUse Your Vision to Tap the Creative Power of Your MindFebruary 14, 2014](https://associationsnow.com/2014/02/14/use-your-vision-to-tap-the-creative-power-of-your-mind/) - [VideoMike Perdue on VirtualizationJanuary 14, 2010](https://associationsnow.com/2010/01/14/mike-perdue-on-virtualization/) - [VideoUrban Land Institute- Project Recovery: Rebuilding Los Angeles After the January 2025 WildfiresSeptember 24, 2026](https://associationsnow.com/2026/09/24/urban-land-institute-project-recovery-rebuilding-los-angeles-after-the-january-2025-wildfires/) - [PodcastAssociations NOW Presents: All for the Love of Chicago: Rethinking the Destination ExperienceSeptember 10, 2026](https://associationsnow.com/2026/09/10/associations-now-presents-all-for-the-love-of-chicago-rethinking-the-destination-experience/) ## Comments **Comments are for ASAE members.** [Learn more about comments on this site.](https://associationsnow.com/comments/) [Log in](https://associationsnow.com/login?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fassociationsnow.com%2F2016%2F05%2F25%2Fhow-the-coffee-industry-cut-through-jargon-with-color%2F%23comments) to your member account or [join ASAE](https://my.asaecenter.org/select-a-membership-type/) !