In a competitive industry, maintaining your dominance and/or achieving dominance can be a challenge, to say the least. With such a competitive industry, experience and skill are factors not just desired for those within the current team, but for those who are wishing to join as well. In this blog, we break down a variety of Professional Coffee courses that will give you the edge over your competitors, or even the edge over your fellow interviewees. Remember, reluctance to plan means planning to fail.
We’ve chosen to look at the variety of courses that the “Specialty Coffee Association” (SCA), ranging from Foundation Level to Professional Level. Once you’ve achieved an accumulation of 100 Points, you’ll be awarded an Industry recognized “SCA Coffee Skills Diploma”. The course fee will usually reflect its length, skill level, the cost involved in running it, and is at the discretion of the AST.
The Foundation level: 5 Points
This fantastic course provides the first taste of a specific coffee discipline. An insight into not only the modules they offer, allowing you to see if it’s an academic choice for yourself, but the industry as well.
Required Experience: None
Course Duration: Minimum 1 Day
The Intermediate level: 10 Points
Taking on the challenge of the Intermediate level test to see if you are suitable for a role within the industry. Advancing on more complex topics and theories that can give you a strong foot in the door, this is the most popular course.
Required Experience: This course recommends current and/or previous experience in the field, though this is not mandatory.
Course Duration: Minimum 2 Days
The Professional level: 25 Points
For those that fancy being the cream of the crop, this one is for you. A gateway into the madness behind the mystery of coffee, this course gives you specialist knowledge at a high level in your chosen subject. As a most impressive and appealing qualification to employers, it clearly displays an expert level of competence within the field.
Required Experience: Hold an Intermediate Qualification in the module of choice supported by extensive relevant experience.
Course Duration: Minimum 3 Days
What is each course comprised of?
Each course includes each of the modules outlined below, with a “Introduction to Coffee” (10 Points) available at base Foundation Level. But it’s not as simple as you would think, there are pinch points attached at every stage.
Barista Skills Module: Behind the Espresso Bar Skills
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Learn how to set your grinder.
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Milk Techniques & Latte art.
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Health & Safety.
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Customer Service.
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Basic Business Practices.
The Brewing Module: Hands on brewing
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Methods for brewing coffee & Variables that affect quality.
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Learning on grind profiles.
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Measuring coffee strength.
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Charting a coffee’s extraction.
Green Coffee Module: Keep it green
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Production
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Processing
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Grading
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Shipping & Arrival at destination.
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Storage
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Coffee Contracts & Portfolio Management.
The Roasting Module: Roast your inner Roaster
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Roast Cycle & Levels.
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Identifying Defects.
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Physical bean changes during roasting process.
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Workspace management & Lean production.
The sensory skills Module: Expertise your palette
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Investigate how we perceive taste.
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Learn how to evaluate coffee’s natural characteristics.
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Implementing gained knowledge into business.
Learn more about setting up, in our Coffee Hub