Dale Harris, Hasbean Coffee & Playset Coffee - Concept; Interactive; Text, “Generating Flavour”
Jenn Rugolo, Playset Coffee - Artwork; Editing; Text, “Perceiving Flavour”
Maxwell Colonna Dashwood, Colonna Coffee - Text, “Multisensory Perception”
Roland Glew, Hasbean Coffee - Text, “Maillard Chemistry”
Tentacle Media - Artwork, “Compare Your Perception”

Partners

Flavour Pathways was made possible through the generosity and support of our partners:

Green Coffee - 32Cup Specialty Coffee Merchants
Brewing - Marco Beverage Systems
Roasting - Ikawa Coffee
Analysis - FACTS University of Nottingham
Space & Build - CaffeCulture

Introducing Flavour Pathways

12 OCTOBER 2018 | When Elliot and Maxwell approached Dale about bringing content tied to ideas explored in his WBC winning presentation to the show, he knew that he didn’t want to just talk about things that we’d done in the past. He not only wanted to push things forward one more step, but hoped to build useful, interesting, and accessible content that could be shared beyond the audience of a 15 minute talk at the show. It would be a more challenging, but ultimately fun and rewarding, project. 

Now, we’re really excited to share the result with you all. 

Flavour Pathways is an interactive, self-service installation that hopes to bridge the gap between some of the causes of flavour in coffee and the complexity in how we experience and communicate those flavours. Two external pathways, written with the guidance and assistance of a star-studded line up of academics and specialists, surround a central feature that investigates how we as an industry record, describe, and value coffee quality. The pathways introduce taste concepts with some interactive elements that help support the ideas; the central feature allows attendees to compare their taste experience with the experiences of lexicon trained panels, professional cuppers, and chemical analysis.

For those of you unable to join us in London, part of the goal of creating this content was to make something that would live beyond the show. After the event, we’ll post all the written and analytical content, as well as a broader description of the motivations, experience, learnings we had along the way. Whilst the interactive elements are harder to replicate digitally, we hope that in the future we’ll be able to rebuild and expand the installation in other locations. Right now, though, we’re focusing on getting the last pieces ready and hoping to enjoying any conversations this creates with attendees.

Whilst this was an unpaid project, it wouldn’t have been possible without the support and belief of the team at CaffeCulture offering the space and covering the materials costs. The analysis and interactive elements were only made possible with the support of the teams at Marco Beverage Systems, 32Cup Specialty Coffee Merchants, and Ikawa.

More importantly, whilst we was able to use the connections we’ve had the privilege to build over the last few years to collate the content, the written and visual work was a collaborative project only made possible with the assistance of the following people, all of whom we regard as leaders in our shared coffee industry: Aaron Davies of Kew Gardens, Dr. Ni (Nicole) Yang and Chujiao (Gloria) Liu of the University of Nottingham, Chahan Yeretzian of ZHAW, Hanna Nuschwander of World Coffee Research, Charles Spence of the University of Oxford, Maxwell Colonna Dashwood, Roland Glew, and Alejandro Mendez of Finca Argentina.