SCA Sensory Skills Foundation
The Sensory Skills Foundation course builds your core sensory toolkit for evaluating coffee quality with confidence. Developed by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), this entry-level class introduces the fundamentals of taste and aroma, the sensory lexicon, cupping protocol basics, and the skills necessary to describe and compare coffees consistently.
Through guided tastings and practical exercises, you’ll explore how extraction, roast level, and processing affect flavor, learn to recognize common attributes and faults, and practice calibration to reduce bias. This foundation prepares you for advanced sensory training within the SCA Coffee Skills Program, helping baristas, roasters, trainers, and enthusiasts speak a shared sensory language.By the end of this course, you will be able to:
Identify the five basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami) and how they appear in coffee.
Recognize common aromas and flavor attributes using the SCA Sensory Lexicon.
Understand how roast level, processing, and extraction affect flavor.
Practice the SCA cupping protocol for consistent coffee evaluation.
Develop skills to calibrate sensory perception and reduce personal bias.
Detect common defects and faults in coffee through guided tasting.
Build confidence in describing and communicating flavors with a shared sensory language.
Format & Details:
Duration: 7 hours
Method of Delivery: In-person
Bundle Affliation: Roaster's Bundle
Payment and Cancellation, if applicable:
Once registration and tuition has been received for a course, we consider this to be a firm commitment for attendance. Last-minute participant substitutions are difficult to arrange, although we understand emergency situations may arise that will affect attendance to programs offered by Firedancer.
We have established the following policy in case of course cancelation:
- If cancellation is made over 15 days before the program start date, 100% of the tuition, less a 10% cancellation fee, will be refunded, or 100% of the tuition is transferable to another program and/or date.
- If cancellation is made within less than 15 days prior to the program date, the entire tuition is non-refundable, however, you may transfer to a future date.
Firedancer reserves the right to cancel or reschedule events as necessary. In such a case, this will occur two weeks before the start of the event. Tuition may be refunded in full or transferred to a future seminar or course. In no event shall Firedancer Coffee Consultants be liable for any cancelation or change penalties assessed by an airline or hotel as a result of course date changes or cancellations.
Tuition & Certificate Fees:
INCLUDED WITH TUITION: Student handbook, class activity materials, certificate of completion (Food Safety Coursework), snacks and lunch (for classes longer than 6 hours).
NOT INCLUDED WITH TUITION: Airfare, transportation, lodging, SCA certificate fees, or other personal expenses.