Food & DrinkExplain Like I'm 5Intermediate
Brewing Coffee by Taste, a free food & drink course on Tomo

Brewing Coffee by Taste

Like Duolingo, but for Brewing Coffee by Taste. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.

For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.

A short one: 11 levels across 2 sections, about 22 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Dialing In Extraction and Selecting and Reading the Bean. It assumes you already know the basics.

11 bite-size levelsAbout 5 minutes each

Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android

Barnaby the Bear, the guide who teaches the Brewing Coffee by Taste course
Brewing Coffee by Taste
with Barnaby the Bear
11
Levels
2
Sections
5
Min/day
What you'll learn

Key ideas in Brewing Coffee by Taste

  • Sourness dominates when water stops before dissolving balanced sugars
  • Over-extraction pulls heavy polyphenols that dry out the palate
  • Optimal cups extract long enough to capture solubilized carbohydrates
  • Astringency is a tactile drying sensation, not a basic tongue taste
  • Water cutting channels through dry grounds pulls parching tannins
  • Bitterness registers as a flavor, while astringency coats the mouth
  • Fast-dissolving organic acids extract into the brew first
  • Sweet carbohydrates dissolve steadily in the middle phase
  • Harsh, woody plant fibers dissolve last under prolonged contact
  • Finer grinds increase surface area to speed up flavor extraction
  • Finer particles pack tighter, slowing water flow through the bed
  • Coarsening the grind speeds drainage and reduces extraction time
  • Channeling lets water bypass dense spots, leaving them under-extracted
  • Water rushes through fissures, over-extracting narrow paths
  • Uneven water flow combines sharp sourness and bitter dryness together
  • Brew ratio controls dissolved solids concentration in the final cup.
Why not just Google it

You've tried the other tabs

Wikipedia

Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.

YouTube

You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.

ChatGPT

One answer, then back to scrolling.

Online courses

Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.

Tomo gives Brewing Coffee by Taste the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.

Try a question

Here's what playing it feels like

A real question from this course. Take your best guess.

Tasting What Went Wrong

What happens when you let water brew with coffee grounds for way too long?

Get it right to open this lesson and 10 more in the app.

Course map

Where Brewing Coffee by Taste takes you

Move beyond rigid recipes and learn to dial in any bean using taste diagnostics, extraction physics, and bean processing knowledge.

  1. 1

    Dialing In Extraction

    • Diagnosing Extraction by Taste
    • Tuning the Extraction Levers
  2. 2

    Selecting and Reading the Bean

    • How Processing Shapes Cup Flavor
    • Decoding Specialty Coffee Labels

2 sections · 4 units · 11 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.

How it's taught

You pick the voice

This course
Explain Like I'm 5

Brewing Coffee by Taste is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.

Start free

Start Brewing Coffee by Taste today.

Download Tomo, search Brewing Coffee by Taste, and play your first lesson in under a minute.