Awamori Flavor Wheel maps out taste of awamori brands
Okinawa National Tax Agency, Okinawa Prefecture Industrial Technology Center, The University of the Ryukyus and National Institute of Technology, Okinawa College, announced on Apr. 26th the completion of “Awamori Flavor Wheel” that maps out the characteristics of awamori. It classifies the flavor and taste of awamori in relevance to each other using 49 words arranged in a circle, each word representing one characteristic of the drink.
The wheel covers expressions of taste like “Sweet” and “Body,” and flavors like “Vanilla,” “Fruity,” “Oily” and even “Billygoat.” Jun Sho who was the fourth son of the last king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, Taiou Sho, and a well known gourmet bestowed the flavor “billygoat” into the vocabulary of food culture.
In the field of chemical aroma, such as beer and wine makng, the visualization of flavor characteristics using a flavor wheel is well advanced.
On the other hand, in regards of awamori, its makers and experts use lots of words to phrase its taste and flavors, but until now there has not been a systematic and commonly accepted sorting of characteristics.
The awamori flavor wheel intended to be utilized as a support tool by people to describe the various flavors of awamori using common language.
It’s also visualizes the qualities of various awamori brands in relation to each other on a radar chart that maps out how the different brands relate to each other.