The capstone of the SCA Green Coffee track — for working buyers, traders, and QC leads ready to own portfolio decisions, write the standards, and defend them on the cupping table and in the contract.
The SCA Green Coffee Professional course is the final and most demanding level of the SCA Coffee Skills Program in green coffee. It assumes you've already absorbed the language and protocols at the Foundation and Intermediate levels, and now asks you to operate at the level of a senior coffee buyer: building a buying plan, managing risk in the C-market, writing supplier standards, defending defect tolerances against a real-world cup, and signing a contract you'll have to live with.
At Tasse Coffee Roastery in Shinjuku, we run this course as private 1:1 or 1:2 instruction so it can be calibrated to your portfolio, your roaster's quality target, and your origins of interest. The SCA recommends 2–5 years of working exposure to green coffee before sitting this level, and the course is structured accordingly — every module assumes you've already had to make a real decision about a real lot.
| Level | SCA CSP Green Coffee — Professional |
| Format | Private 1:1 or 1:2, in-person |
| Location | Tasse Coffee Roastery, Shinjuku, Tokyo |
| Languages | English / Japanese / Mandarin / Cantonese |
| Tuition | ¥160,000 (incl. SCA exam fees) |
| Certification | SCA CSP Green Coffee Professional (25 SCA points) |
| Assessment | Written exam (50 questions, 80% pass) + practical exam (210 min, 80% pass) |
Coffee Botany & the Impact of Climate Change
Green Coffee Professional begins where Intermediate left off — at the plant itself. You'll dig deeply into Arabica varieties and cultivars, the genetic and environmental factors that shape cup quality, and the rapidly changing climatic pressures redrawing the world's coffee map.
What you'll learn
- Arabica species, varieties, and cultivars at a professional depth
- How altitude, temperature, rainfall, and soil interact with cup quality
- Climate change risks: rising temperatures, leaf rust, water stress, shifting harvest windows
- How origin-side adaptation (shade, rootstock, hybrids) reshapes future supply
We map current and future risk to several origins you may purchase from — Ethiopia, Colombia, Brazil, Indonesia — and discuss how supply pressure should already be informing your buying calendar.
Farm Management & Processing Methodologies
Buyers who only know the cup miss most of the story. This module takes you to the farm: how producers actually run their operations, where quality is won or lost, and how modern processing decisions translate into the flavors on your cupping table.
What you'll learn
- Farm-level economics: yield, picking labor, inputs, and margin reality
- Wet, dry, honey, and anaerobic processing — controls and risk profiles
- Drying — patios, raised beds, mechanical — and its impact on stability and shelf life
- How to read processing as a quality and risk signal during sample evaluation
We trace a single lot from cherry to export-ready bag and identify every point where a buyer's specification (or lack of one) directly influenced the final cup.
Common Sensory Defects & Green Defect Identification
At the Professional level, defect work moves beyond the SCA grading sheet. You'll learn to identify defects by sight and by cup, trace them back to their root causes in farming or processing, and decide whether a lot is acceptable, redeemable, or rejectable for your portfolio.
What you'll learn
- Category 1 and Category 2 defects, full black, sour, insect-damaged, fungus-damaged, foreign matter
- Linking visual defects to the specific sensory faults they produce in the cup
- Process defects vs. storage defects vs. genetic anomalies
- Building defect tolerance ranges that match your brand's quality standard
Practical defect calibration — you'll grade a 350g sample, predict the cup faults, then verify against a controlled cupping. The exam expects 80% accuracy here.
Sample Analysis & Sampling Processes
A purchase decision is only as trustworthy as the sample behind it. This module covers how to receive, log, sample-roast, and evaluate green coffee in a way that is consistent across lots, days, and roasters — so your buying decisions actually compare apples to apples.
What you'll learn
- Pre-shipment, arrival, offer, and type sampling — what each is for and how each is logged
- Sample roast standards: profile, color, time, and rest period for SCA-style protocol cups
- Building a sampling SOP that works across a busy QC lab
- Diagnosing sample-to-sample inconsistency before it costs you a contract
You'll write a sampling and sample-roasting standard that a junior buyer or QC tech could follow with no further explanation — exactly what the practical exam asks of you.
Cupping for Buying Decisions
Cupping at this level is not about scoring for sport. It's about deciding: buy, reject, blend, hold for a customer, or counter the offer. We sharpen your palate against a clear quality target and your portfolio's needs.
What you'll learn
- Calibrating your palate to your business's flavor brief, not just the SCA form
- Triangulation, intensity, and reference cupping for buying calibration
- Reading flavor as origin, processing, and freshness signals — and pricing that read
- Communicating cup decisions to producers and traders without losing the relationship
We run a buyer's table — five competing offers from one origin, at four different price points — and walk through how a professional buyer actually chooses.
Futures Markets, Costs & Portfolio Management
Quality is only half the job. The Professional level is where you learn to actually buy: how the C-market works, how cost-of-production and FOB pricing roll up to your landed cost, and how to build a portfolio that survives a volatile year.
What you'll learn
- Arabica futures, the differential, and how the C-market sets the floor for green prices
- Cost-of-production drivers in producing countries and what's actually fair
- Forward contracting, fixed-price vs. price-to-be-fixed, and FX risk
- Building a green portfolio: origin diversification, vintage spacing, and inventory cover
You'll build a 12-month buying plan for a fictional roaster with a defined volume and quality target — and stress-test it against a 30¢ C-market move.
Contracts, Supplier Assessment & Third-Party Accreditation
Closing the loop: how green coffee actually changes hands. You'll review the language of green contracts, learn how to evaluate suppliers and origin partners on more than just price, and understand the role of third-party certifications in your purchasing claims.
What you'll learn
- Standard ECC/GCA contract language, arbitration, and what protects (or exposes) you
- Supplier scoring on quality, traceability, communication, and continuity of supply
- Targeted purchasing plans tied to a specific blend or single-origin program
- Fairtrade, Organic, Rainforest Alliance, direct trade — what each does and doesn't claim
We work through a real-style supplier scorecard and decide who stays in the portfolio for next year, who gets a smaller allocation, and who you walk away from.
Buyers, Traders, and QC Leaders
Green Coffee Professional is built for the people who own purchasing decisions: roastery green buyers, importer-side traders, QC managers in a multi-origin program, and producer-side export quality leads. If you're already doing the job and want the certification — and the structured frameworks to do it more rigorously — this is the level for you.
You should arrive having already cupped hundreds of samples, having handled at least one full buying cycle, and ideally having held an SCA Green Coffee Intermediate certification. If you haven't, we'll talk first and may suggest starting one level down.
The Three Levels of SCA Green Coffee
Foundation — language, basic grading, origin awareness, the structure of the green industry.
Intermediate — full SCA grading, sample evaluation, working knowledge of contracts and shipping.
Professional — portfolio management, market risk, supplier assessment, writing the standards. You are here.
After Professional, the natural next step is the SCA Skills Diploma — combining Professional certifications across multiple disciplines (Green, Roasting, Sensory, Brewing, Barista) — or moving toward Q Grader certification for full sensory specialization.
Tasse Coffee Roastery · SCA Premier Training Campus · Shinjuku, Tokyo
Private 1:1 and 1:2 SCA CSP courses in English, Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese.
Module images are illustrative AI renderings; actual training is hands-on with real green samples and lab equipment.
