Specialty Roaster In Florida Launches An Interactive Coffee Flavor Wheel Aimed At Consumers To Help Make Specialty Coffee More Accessible – CoffeeTalk

Steel Oak Coffee, a specialty coffee roaster based in Florida, has introduced the first interactive Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel aimed at enhancing consumer engagement with specialty coffee. This tool, which reinterprets a concept traditionally utilized by coffee professionals and Q-graders, allows visitors on Steel Oak’s website to explore different flavor categories, such as Floral, Fruity, or Chocolate, and discover coffees that align with their taste preferences. This approach is designed to make specialty coffee more accessible to the vast majority of Americans—over 80% of whom drink coffee daily—but only about 10% select specialty options.

Carl Dupper, CEO of Steel Oak Coffee, emphasized the objective of bridging the gap between roaster tasting practices and consumer shopping habits. The interactive Flavor Wheel aims to simplify and enhance the coffee-buying experience, making the professional vocabulary of flavors approachable for everyday consumers. Furthermore, the introduction of this tool comes at a strategic moment, as the price of commodity coffee has increased by 21% over the past year, thereby reducing the price gap between mass-market blends and specialty coffee. Specialty roasters like Steel Oak are less affected by tariffs and global price fluctuations, which enables them to provide higher-quality beans that are now competitively priced with grocery store coffee options.

Key highlights of this initiative include being the first known interactive Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel in specialty coffee e-commerce, allowing consumers to shop based on flavor preferences rather than traditional categories like origin or roast level. Overall, the initiative not only simplifies the buying process but also encourages exploration and education in the realm of specialty coffee.

The interactive wheel is live @ Steel Oak Coffee