Professional Barista Techniques
Move beyond the basics of espresso and milk. Learn to manipulate extraction variables, master water chemistry, and refine your sensory palate for professional-grade coffee service.
Like Duolingo, but for Professional Barista Techniques. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
24 levels across 4 sections, about 48 minutes end to end, roughly 10 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Precision and Texture, The Science of Extraction, Sensory and Workflow, and The Raw Material. It assumes you already know the basics.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Professional Barista Techniques
- Adapting recipes to bean age
- Environmental impact on extraction
- Recipes as baselines
- Early extraction flavors
- Middle extraction flavors
- Late extraction flavors
- Salami Shot flavor progression
- Increasing yield allows more water to wash out balancing bitters and sugars
- Short yields (Ristretto) emphasize acidity by cutting the shot before bitters develop
- Identifying the flavor progression in a Salami Shot
- Yield is the primary lever for moving the flavor profile along the acid-bitter axis
- A larger coffee puck creates more physical resistance for the pump to push against
- Understanding that recipes must be adapted to specific bean age and environment
- Higher doses increase the concentration of undissolved solids for a creamier body
- Dose changes affect the gap between the shower screen and the coffee surface
- Using yield to correct flavor imbalances
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 Professional Barista Techniques 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.
If your cafe gets much more humid during a rainstorm, why might your espresso shots start flowing differently?
Get it right to open this lesson and 23 more in the app.
Where Professional Barista Techniques takes you
- 1
Precision and Texture
- Dialing in by Taste
- Microfoam Mastery
- 2
The Science of Extraction
- Puck Prep and Channeling
- Managing the Extraction Curve
- 3
Sensory and Workflow
- Identifying Extraction Defects
- High-Volume Efficiency
- 4
The Raw Material
- Processing and Solubility
- Water Chemistry for Coffee
4 sections · 8 units · 24 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
Professional Barista Techniques is taught in the Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. 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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Start Professional Barista Techniques today.
Download Tomo, search Professional Barista Techniques, and play your first lesson in under a minute.