SCA Sensory Skills Professional

Description

SCA Sensory Skills Professional

The Sensory Skills Professional course is designed for coffee professionals who want to take their sensory knowledge to a managerial level. Building on the Intermediate course, this program equips learners to implement and lead sensory evaluation systems, align with industry standards, and make data-driven decisions to improve coffee quality. Through hands-on, interactive sessions, participants develop advanced skills in identifying, measuring, and interpreting coffee characteristics, both in green beans and brewed beverages.

What you’ll gain from this course:

• Transition from Intermediate to manager-level sensory skills
• Align tasting and evaluation with international coffee standards
• Implement and manage sensory assessment systems in a coffee business
• Identify and evaluate quality in specialty green coffee
• Accurately measure and describe flavor, aroma, acidity, body, and aftertaste
• Generate consistent, repeatable sensory data for decision-making
• Apply structured methodology and calibration for professional assessments
• Interpret results to support quality control, purchasing, and production

Course Overview:

Sensory Assessment Overview
– Sensory Assessment Review
– Sensory Assessment in the Coffee Industry

Physiology and Sensory Attributes
– Chain of Sensory Perception
– Sensation and Perception
– Impact of Stimuli Interactions on Perception
– Thresholds and Sensitivity
– Four Types of Thresholds

Bias & Error
– Psychologically Based Biases
– Influence of Personality and Attitude
– Mitigation of Bias in Sensory Assessment

SCA Flavor Wheel & WCR Lexicon
– Application and Taxonomy
– Development of the WCR Lexicon and Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel

Gustatory Attributes in Coffee
– Rank Intensity of Gustatory Attributes
– Distinguish Differences in Quality of Attributes Applied to Coffee

Mouthfeel in Coffee
– Assessing Attributes in Coffee
– Perceptions of Attributes
– Distinguishing and Assessing Value in Flavor Attributes
– Common Negative Attributes

Sensory Descriptive Profiling
– Basics and Sensory Descriptive Methods
– Analyzing Data and Interpreting Results

Applying SCA Cupping Protocol
– SCA Cupping Protocol
– Review and Application
– Processing Considerations with SCA Cupping Form
– SCA Descriptive Assessment

Sensory Panels & Calibration Applied
– Objective Sensory Evaluation
– Preparing A Training Program
– Sensory Panel Performance, Health and Welfare

Shelf Life, Consumer Testing and New Product Development
– Plan for Sensory Testing Design