Specialty Coffee: Flavor and Extraction
Like Duolingo, but for Specialty Coffee: Flavor and Extraction. 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: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Dialing In Your Cup and Selecting and Pairing Beans. It assumes you already know the basics.
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Key ideas in Specialty Coffee: Flavor and Extraction
- Fruity organic acids dissolve rapidly in early brewing before sugars extract.
- Under-extracted brews lack sweet carbohydrates to balance sharp acids.
- A thin, hollow finish signals insufficient total dissolved solids.
- Astringency is a drying tactile sensation caused by polyphenols and tannins.
- Heavy bitter compounds extract late after desirable flavors dissolve.
- Prolonged water contact washes out harsh wood fibers from spent grounds.
- Finer particles create greater total surface area for water contact.
- Coarse grounds have thick cores that slow down water penetration.
- Finer grinds dramatically accelerate the extraction of all coffee solubles.
- Lowering brew water below 90°C slows extraction of bitter roast flavors.
- Dark roasts are highly porous and yield harsh compounds very quickly.
- Cooler water preserves body while curbing pungent, burnt solubles.
- Water exploits cracks, over-extracting paths while bypassing dense pockets.
- Channeling creates muddy flavors with both under-extracted sourness and bitter bite.
- Puck fissures cause fast, uneven flow and blotchy blonde streams.
- Fresh water creates a steep concentration gradient that pulls solubles out fast.
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Specialty Coffee: Flavor and Extraction 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.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
When hot water first touches your coffee grounds, what comes rushing out first?
Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.
Where Specialty Coffee: Flavor and Extraction takes you
Move beyond basic recipes by mastering extraction mechanics, post-harvest processing, and origin profiles. Learn to diagnose off-flavors by taste and match your brew method to any bean.
- 1
Dialing In Your Cup
- Diagnosing Extraction by Taste and Flow
- Controlling Extraction Across Brew Styles
- 2
Selecting and Pairing Beans
- How Post-Harvest Processing Shapes Flavor
- Matching Bean Origin to the Right Brewer
2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Specialty Coffee: Flavor and Extraction 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.
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The Science of Specialty Coffee
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Coffee: From Forest to Filter
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Better Coffee at Home
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Brewing Your Best Cup
Stop settling for mediocre coffee. Learn the simple, high-impact adjustments that turn your morning routine into a cafe-quality experience.
Start Specialty Coffee: Flavor and Extraction today.
Download Tomo, search Specialty Coffee: Flavor and Extraction, and play your first lesson in under a minute.