Food Relationship Builder™
The Flavor Experience Workshop is a full-day, in-person team event built entirely around taste — not lectures, not competition. Guided through a series of tastings such as maple syrup, salt, traditional balsamic, extra virgin olive oil, chocolate; teams work in small groups where there are no wrong answers and nobody's palate is judged.
Woven throughout the day are seven practical "food superpowers" — simple, approachable shifts in how people relate to eating — introduced one at a time, tied to whatever's just been tasted. By the close, each small group reports back on what they're taking with them: a specific change they're committing to try, or an honest pass. It's not a competition and nothing is required — just a shared, low-pressure experience that gives people something real to walk away with.
Following the event, attendees also receive a sourcing guide — where to find the specific products tasted, comparable options in the same categories, and anything they asked about specifically on the day.
One IT manager put it simply: "It was a great event — people have been talking about it for the past week!"
Runs 9:00 AM–3:00 PM on-site, for groups up to approximately 25.
Get in touch to discover what a flavor experience workshop could do for your team.
Reach out today to start the journey towards a healthier, more connected team.
No wrong answers here. There's nothing to get right here, either. Surprises, perhaps. Fun, for sure, and deliciousness.
That's how I open every flavor experience workshop I run for corporate teams — full-day or half-day, in-person. Organized into small groups, everyone will taste items they thought they were familiar with, like maple syrup, salt, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and chocolate. That simple activity of tasting is where the surprise, fun, and deliciousness come in, mixed with a bit of wonder.
Pay attention to what you're experiencing in your mouth, I'll suggest. What word would you give to the feeling? Then we talk about it together.
There's no competition, no scoring, no right answer to defend — your team is already competing enough in the rest of their day. It's total teamwork, where everyone gets uplifted and nobody feels exposed.
It's the rare team event people are still talking about a week later. After the King County, WA workshop, the manager who booked it wrote: "It was a great event — people have been talking about it for the past week!" One attendee wrote: "You have salvaged the term 'team building.' A perfect balance of presentation and taste testing."
Everyone leaves with a tasting kit, a follow-up sourcing guide for finding the real thing on their own, and the empowerment piece — the ability to find, evaluate, and pick the real thing themselves, long after the workshop ends.
If you found your way here through Great Taste, or you've caught me at The Raj, welcome — the same curiosity about food shows up in the workshops too, just built for a team instead of a listening audience.
Steven Boss works directly on each project, on location. He brings his life's experience rather than credentials. During his years importing specialty foods, he got to meet the people who actually grow and produce what we eat — to see how they work the land, how they process their food, and to know them as people. He traveled to Europe and ate amazing food produced by these incredible people. Along the way, he formed relationships with chefs and listened to them talk about sourcing — getting to know food from the inside out.
Great Taste, my weekly radio show, is now in its 20th year. I also lead twice-weekly talks for guests at The Raj Ayurveda Health Center — 150+ sessions and counting.
Get in touch with me to discover what a flavor experience workshop could do for your team — or just to say hello if you're here from the show.
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Steve's channel of shorts, interviews, and more.
Listen to past Great Taste episodes here. Great Taste is a weekly hour-long radio program, in its 20th year, currently airing on community radio station KICI 105.3 FM in Iowa City, Iowa.
Show host, Steven Boss, interviews cookbook authors, food producers, journalists, chefs, and others striving to inform listeners about the personal power each individual has to create a more tasty, abundant, diverse, healthy, and sustainable world.
Great Taste-Audio Files
Kids Cook Everything is the latest book from Mark Bittman, and it is also his first book for kids. Bittman is the author of more than 30 books, including the NYT bestsellers, How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.
He hosts the "Food with Mark Bittman" podcast, and his team’s weekly The Bittman Project posts are a must-read.
Sarah is the social media manager at America’s Test Kitchen and the force behind @ahnestkitchen on Instagram and TikTok.
Her mother, Nam Soon Ahn, immigrated to the US from South Korea in the 1990’s and previously ran a successful restaurant in California.
We chat about her book A Korean Mom’s Kitchen Wisdom and 100 Family Recipes.
Over 20 years ago Steve Sando founded Rancho Gordo in Napa Valley California featuring products indigenous to the New World and/or the Americas. He is "The Bean Whisperer."
A fantastic chat with the extraordinary Rose Levy Beranbaum. Rose is the author of 14 cookbooks and the winner of six James Beard awards and two International Association of Culinary Professionals awards. She is also a member of the Cookbook Hall of Fame.
Dave Chapman is an organic farmer and co-director of the Real Organic Project.
Vietri, the largest American importer of home decor and handcrafted tableware from Italy, is 40 years old in 2023. Its founder, Susan Gravely, chats with Steve about her new book, Italy on a Plate-Travels, Memories, Menus.
Adan Medrano, author of Don’t Count the Tortillas and proponent of Texas Mexican food chats with Steve Boss and Matt Steigerwald.
Katie Parla, dishes on Food of the Italian South, Food of the Italian Islands, and The Joy of Pizza. Don’t go to Rome without checking out her latest recommendations at
Carly Knowles is not only a certified nutritionist and coach, but she’s the author of The Nutritionist’s Kitchen. Steve’s talk with her covers two parts at the following links:
Alicia Kennedy is a noted journalist who writes on food, culture, and other topics. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Vogue, New York, and other major publications. No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating. is her first book.
EAT TO THRIVE
Please email me with any questions or comments: steve@foodrelationshipbuilder.com