The course where recipes stop being magic and start making sense. SCA Brewing Intermediate is for the brewer who already makes good coffee — and now wants to know why it's good, and how to fix it when it isn't.
Foundation gave you the variables. Intermediate gives you the framework. Over a focused, hands-on programme you'll learn to measure what you're tasting, taste what you're measuring, and connect the two using the same tools — the refractometer, the Coffee Brewing Control Chart, granulometry — that competition baristas and quality teams use every day.
At Tasse Coffee Roastery in Shinjuku, this is a private 1:1 or 1:2 course taught in English, Japanese, Mandarin or Cantonese. You'll spend the day at the brew bar, not in a lecture theatre — every concept paired with a brew on the counter and a taste in the cup.
Course at a glance
| Level | SCA Coffee Skills Program — Brewing Intermediate |
| Format | Private 1:1 or 1:2, fully hands-on |
| Location | Tasse Coffee Roastery, Shinjuku, Tokyo |
| Languages | English · 日本語 · 普通话 · 廣東話 |
| Prerequisite | Brewing Foundation, or 6 months of regular filter brewing |
| Certification | SCA written exam (online, within 21 days) and practical assessment |
The seven modules below are how the course is structured. Each one is a working session — discussion, demonstration, brewing, tasting, calibration — not a lecture.
Brewing Variables — Going Deeper
The Foundation course gave you the building blocks — grind, water, time, ratio, temperature. Intermediate is where you stop following recipes and start understanding them. We map every variable to its impact on extraction so you can predict what will happen before you change it.
What you'll learn
- How grind size shifts contact time and surface area, and why a small change is rarely small
- The interaction between brew temperature and roast level, and where each unlocks or shuts down flavour
- Why brew ratio is the single most overlooked lever for body and clarity
- How agitation and pour pattern reshape the bed, channel water, and change extraction yield
Hands-on highlight
We isolate one variable at a time on the same coffee, taste each side-by-side, and write down exactly what changed. By the end you have a personal library of cause and effect, not just a recipe sheet.
Extraction Theory — Strength vs. Yield
Two coffees can have identical strength and very different flavour. Two coffees can be extracted to the same yield and taste nothing alike. Intermediate teaches you to separate the two ideas and use them as independent levers.
What you'll learn
- What soluble solids actually are, and which compounds dissolve at which stage of extraction
- The mathematical relationship between dose, brew water, beverage mass, TDS and extraction yield
- Under-extracted vs. over-extracted: how to tell them apart by taste, not by guesswork
- Why 'strong coffee' and 'well-extracted coffee' are not the same thing
Hands-on highlight
You'll calculate extraction yield by hand for several brews — long-form on paper — until the formula feels intuitive. Then you'll predict yields before brewing and check your accuracy.
The Coffee Brewing Control Chart
The Brewing Control Chart is the map that connects what your tongue tells you to what your instruments measure. Once you can read it, you can troubleshoot any brew without guessing.
What you'll learn
- How to read the chart's axes — strength on one, yield on the other — and where the ideal box sits
- How to use a refractometer correctly: sample preparation, filtering, temperature, and reading technique
- Plotting your brews on the chart and seeing patterns emerge across grinders, recipes and roasts
- Why the 'ideal' zone is a starting point, not a verdict — and how to find your own house style inside it
Hands-on highlight
Each student plots a series of their own brews on a printed chart, then re-brews to move the dot in a chosen direction. By the end of the session you can change strength and yield independently and on purpose.
Water — The 98% You're Drinking
Coffee is mostly water, and the water you choose decides what flavours can dissolve in the first place. Intermediate is where most students realise their mineral profile has been quietly capping their results.
What you'll learn
- Hardness, alkalinity, and TDS — what each measures and how they affect extraction
- Why high alkalinity flattens acidity and why very soft water can taste hollow
- The SCA's recommended water composition window and how to hit it with simple home blends
- How to test the water you have today and decide whether to filter, blend or remineralise
Hands-on highlight
We brew the same coffee with three water profiles in front of you — soft, balanced and hard. The differences are not subtle. After this exercise you will never trust a recipe that doesn't specify its water.
Grinder Mastery — Particles, Distribution & Fines
A great brew is built on a great grind, and a great grind is more than a number on a dial. Intermediate looks inside the grinder — at burr geometry, particle distribution and the fines that quietly shape every cup.
What you'll learn
- Conical vs. flat burrs and how each shapes particle distribution
- What 'bimodal grinding' means and why fines disproportionately drive bitterness and astringency
- Granulometry by sieve: how to see your distribution with simple equipment
- How to dial a grinder for filter coffee using both taste and measurement together
Hands-on highlight
You'll sift the same dose through stacked sieves, weigh each fraction, and brew with and without fines to feel exactly what they contribute — and what they take away.
Multiple Brewing Methods, One Framework
V60, Chemex, French press, AeroPress, batch brew — they all obey the same physics. Once you can read extraction, recipes for different devices stop being magic and start being translation.
What you'll learn
- Percolation vs. immersion vs. hybrid: how each method moves water through coffee
- Why the same recipe will under-extract in one brewer and over-extract in another
- Translating a target strength and yield from one device to the next
- Choosing the right method for the coffee — origin, roast and intended flavour profile
Hands-on highlight
Each student brews the same coffee on three different devices and dials each one to land in the same extraction zone. The cups will still taste different — and you'll know exactly why.
Troubleshooting & Recipe Refinement
The final piece is the diagnostic loop: taste, measure, hypothesise, adjust, taste again. Once it's instinctive, you can walk into any café or kitchen and improve the coffee in front of you in two or three brews.
What you'll learn
- Reading flavour faults — sourness, hollowness, bitterness, astringency — and mapping each to a cause
- Choosing the right variable to change, and changing only one at a time
- Building a brewing log that helps you learn faster, and avoiding the 'random walk' of café tinkering
- When to stop refining: recognising that 'best' is a moving target shaped by coffee, water and context
Hands-on highlight
We finish with a blind diagnostic exercise — three intentionally flawed brews you must identify, explain, and fix in one round of adjustments. It's the moment everything from the week clicks into place.
Who is this course for?
Brewing Intermediate is built for people who have already lived with the basics for a while and want to push past the ceiling that recipes alone create:
- Café baristas who can pull a clean shot but want to make their pour-overs more consistent
- Home brewers ready to move beyond YouTube recipes and build their own
- Roasters and Q-graders who need brewing fluency to evaluate their own coffees
- Anyone preparing for SCA Brewing Professional, where the same skills are pushed to commercial scale
What comes after?
The SCA Brewing pathway is three levels deep, and each one builds directly on the last:
Brewing Foundation — variables, ratios and the language of brewing.
Brewing Intermediate — measurement, water, the control chart and recipe building. You are here.
Brewing Professional — commercial brew bars, batch consistency, quality systems and team training.
Tasse Coffee Roastery is an SCA Premier Training Campus in Shinjuku, Tokyo. All courses are private (1:1 or 1:2), available in English, Japanese, Mandarin and Cantonese.
