About & Support

A local-first companion for specialty coffee — create bean cards, look up coffee knowledge, track resting, record brews and cuppings, and walk a city through the Field Guide.

About OLLA Brew Lab

OLLA Brew Lab is a local-first specialty coffee logging and reference tool. It brings bean cards, coffee knowledge lookup, resting tracking, brewing tools, brew records, cupping records, and a city coffee guide into one place, along with Roast to Cup, a roastery workbench for small coffee teams and independent roasters.

The app is built around a structured coffee knowledge base that helps you enter and review coffee information faster. Your personal app data — such as bean cards, brew logs, cupping records, notes, favorites, and preferences — is stored on your device; sign in with Apple and it can also sync across your devices through your own iCloud. All core features work without an account.

Bean Cards & Home Screen Widgets

Manage your beans as a card deck. Each bean card can record variety, origin, estate, process, roast level, roast date, and resting information; the rest and peak countdown runs from the roast date, or from the day the card was created when no roast date is entered.

The card can expand into a full detail view, and resting / suggested drinking windows are visualized with a phased progress display. You can pin selected beans and show key information through iOS Home Screen widgets in small and medium sizes.

Process is picked from a list of 33 options in five groups, shared by the bean card, brew, cupping, roast, green lot and roasted lot forms; for anything not on the list, type the wording from the bag under Custom, and detail pages show it exactly as you typed it. The list grew in 1.3.5: when you sync across devices, a device not yet updated to 1.3.5 shows a newly added option as a short English key, or leaves it blank; it reads normally once that device is updated, and the record itself is not affected.

Label Scan & Image Sharing

Camera capture is one path: bean-card scanning, green-lot scanning, the Codex bag reader and OLLA label scanning all share one capture panel and one review sheet. Photograph the coffee-bag label or pick a photo from your library, and the app reads the origin, variety, process, estate, roast level, roast date, altitude and weight; for green lots it also reads moisture, density, harvest year, grade and the supplier lot code. Every field on the review sheet shows the words on the bag it was read from, candidates can be switched, anything uncertain can be left empty, and a correction you make is remembered and offered first next time. For process, only wordings with one clear meaning are read: where producers use a wording for different things, such as Hybrid Washed or Double Fermentation, it is not read as any one process and the field is left for you to fill in.

Recognition runs on your device. On devices that support Apple Intelligence the on-device model also fills gaps, corrects misreadings and adds a three-language explanation and translation — the photo and the text never leave the device; where it is not available, text recognition works as before. Further AI features arrive in later releases, and this page will be updated when they do.

The Codex bag reader serves a different purpose: it simply reads the bag in front of you — origin, variety, process and estate arrive with their Codex summaries, and foreign-language aroma and packaging copy is translated on the spot — without creating a bean card or writing anything to the database. When the roaster matches a place in the FIELD GUIDE, the reader and the bean card link straight to that place; a growing region the Codex does not yet carry goes into the bean card as written on the label. You may optionally keep the bag photo as the bean-card cover, stored only on your device.

Every record that can share an image uses one family of cards: bean cards, brew records (filter and espresso), roast curves, classic and sensory cuppings, roasted lots, green lots, assessment summaries, assessment rankings, A/B comparisons (brew and cupping), roast comparisons (up to three roasts) and roast experiments. Start from the share action on the record page (for a roast curve and a roast comparison it is in the export menu, as Curve image PNG and Compare image PNG). The sheet shows a preview and three choices: a style (Lab Sheet or Instrument), a paper (Light or Dark) and a format. Formats are 4:5 and 1:1; bean cards, brew records, roast curves and both cupping sheets also offer 9:16. Style and paper are remembered, and so is a format once you have picked one; a record with little on it opens in 1:1. The image is then sent through the iOS system share sheet.

An assessment can be shared once it is archived: one summary image per sample and, when the assessment has two or more samples, one ranking image for the whole assessment (the top six on 4:5, the top four on 1:1; equal scores share a rank). An older cupping record that holds both a classic and a sensory sheet asks which sheet the image shows.

Numbers on a share image come from the same place as the record page and are written the same way; an extraction yield that is an estimate carries a tilde (~) and is labelled Estimated. A share image never shows prices, supplier names, internal codes, blind codes, stock quantities or evaluator names, even when the record holds them. The header carries the OLLA Brew Lab mark, and the footer carries ollabrewlab.com and your nickname if you have set one. With OLLA Pro, a studio name set under Report byline is printed in place of the nickname, with the studio logo when there is one.

Share images are free, including those of Roast to Cup and assessment records (creating those records is part of OLLA Pro). The long archive image of earlier versions is no longer offered: one record, one image. For the full content of a record use its PDF, found where it was before: Export PDF on brew records, cupping records, green lots, roasted lots and A/B comparisons; the export menu on a roast and on a roast comparison; Export booklet on an assessment; the experiment report on a roast experiment. The cupping sheet and A/B PDFs are free; the others are part of OLLA Pro. Bean cards have no PDF export at present.

When a brew lands in the golden-cup range for both extraction yield and strength, a gold note appears on the brew card and detail page.

Coffee Codex & REF Data Cards

OLLA includes a built-in coffee knowledge base covering origins, variety lineages, estates, processing, roasting, brewing, sensory work, and coffee culture.

Selected entries include REF data cards: structured visual cards that summarize key information such as altitude, lineage, flavor notes, processing details, grading standards, harvest context, or other reference data where available. These cards are designed to help you understand an entry quickly before reading deeper.

The codex is searchable, cross-linked, and available in Simplified Chinese, English, and Japanese. Search is global: one query returns both Codex entries and your own beans, brews and cuppings. When you search entry names and aliases, spaces and hyphens make no difference: SL 28 and SL-28 both find SL28.

Entry and section pages that have sources end with a Sources line that opens a numbered list: each row gives the title and the site it is on, and some carry an author, a date or the date it was accessed. Tapping a row leaves the app and opens that page in your browser (this needs a connection); a long press hands the address to the system share sheet, which is where Copy is. An address that is only a site's front page is labelled "Site home page"; an entry with no source to list shows no line.

LAB Files

LAB is the Codex’s long-form section. Each issue takes one subject — a variety, an auction, an exporter or a business that runs across borders — with a source for every number, charts and plates. After the standfirst, every issue opens with key points: one line per chapter with its conclusion; tap one to jump to that chapter, or switch to the contents.

The first three issues are free in full, charts included. Best of Panama 2026 can be read in full for free; its charts and lot-by-lot data are part of OLLA Pro, and until unlocked, chart areas show only their outlines under a frosted cover.

The issue "Processing: Which Layer Stays" is divided by chapter: chapters 01–07, 15 and 16 are open to everyone, and chapters 08–14 and the lot tables inside the chapters are part of OLLA Pro. Until unlocked, a locked chapter still shows its title, its one-sentence answer and the way it opens under a frosted cover, and the full contents list is always visible. With OLLA Pro, the locked chapters, charts and data all open.

The Field Guide

A coffee archive kept city by city. Four editions so far: Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Fukuoka — coffee-led, and including those with a local character, a neighbourhood role, or a style particular to the city.

Entries are selected from each shop’s public data of recent years (ratings and review counts, the text of reviews, third-party listings) put through scoring of OLLA’s own. The list carries no ranking order and shifts as the body of data grows. Each place is filed under four standards — coffee quality, character, space and comfort, hospitality — and the screen shows band words only, never a score.

A place page gives you a photograph, a keyword overview, hours and price, a map and directions; the directions button lets you pick Apple Maps or Google Maps yourself. Nearby sorts by distance once you allow location, in 5 km and 10 km tiers. Places you like can be saved, and saved places gather under Favorites on the home screen.

The whole Guide ships inside the app — list, writing and photographs — reads offline, and is written in all three languages.

Brew Log & Sensory Panel

Record your brews and review them over time. Brew logs can include dose, grind, water temperature, ratio, TDS, extraction yield, brew method, notes, and sensory impressions.

The sensory panel helps you compare brews through aroma, acidity, sweetness, body, aftertaste, and balance. Where available, you can also record SCA-style flavor information and extraction-related data.

The method of a brew can be "Filter / immersion" or "Espresso". An espresso record holds four numbers: dose, yield, shot time (5–120 s) and an optional TDS. The ratio is yield divided by dose; there is an extraction yield only when a TDS is entered (TDS × yield ÷ dose), and the verdict then reads extraction only, on the Espresso Lab bands (18–22% is ideal), not strength against the filter range. Espresso takes no part in the golden-cup check, or in the golden-cup chart and golden-box rate of the Coffee Journal: the golden-cup range is a reference for filter coffee. Shots saved with "Log as a brew" from Espresso Lab in 1.3.4 and 1.3.5 are recognised and shown as espresso as before; the records themselves are not rewritten. A new brew form opens in the method you last saved from the form.

When a record has a stored extraction yield, a word beside it says where it came from: Measured (worked out from a weighed beverage), Estimated (no beverage weight; derived with the dripper or immersion formula, and shown with a "~") or Entered (typed into the form by hand). Yields saved before 1.3.5 carry no such note and read as Measured, as they did. A device not yet on 1.3.5 shows neither; if the yield is edited on such a device, its note goes back to unrecorded and the yield reads as Measured.

Flavor and mouthfeel words can be your own. The flavor picker on the brew, cupping, assessment and bean card forms, and the mouthfeel words on the sensory panel, offer Type your own: a word that is not on the list can be typed in, up to 24 characters, and is shown exactly as typed, untranslated; if what you type is a word on the list, that option is selected instead. Flavor words you typed form their own group, Own words; they can be found by search in brew and cupping records, travel with backups and iCloud sync, and do not affect scores. A flavor word typed as one all-lowercase English word (such as yuzu) is saved with a capital first letter (Yuzu). Main tastes, taints and the sixteen everyday words are still chosen from their lists only. A device not yet updated to 1.3.5 keeps these words but cannot show them properly (flavor words are missing on most pages, mouthfeel words appear as a short code) and cannot remove them in its pickers; they return after updating.

Cupping Records & Coffee Archive

Record cuppings on a professional three-part sheet: basic info, a classic ten-attribute score sheet — fragrance, flavor, aftertaste and more — plus extraction info and brewing strategy. Scores of 80+ earn a SPECIALTY stamp, and any sheet can be exported as an A4 PDF to share.

The Coffee Archive brings bean cards, brews, cuppings, A/B experiments, and roasts together in one hub with stats, search, and filters — the bean and roast tabs also switch between own-roast and purchased (imported) in one tap; the journal and yearly stats include cuppings and roasts as well.

The cupping feature, the in-app cupping sheet, and the exported A4 cupping-sheet layout are based on a prototype sheet provided by IvanYang, co-developed as OLLA BREW LAB × IvanYang. Rights to the prototype sheet design belong to IvanYang; the in-app implementation and the digital layout of the exported PDF are © OLLA Brew Lab.

Roast to Cup (OLLA Pro)

Roast to Cup is built for small coffee teams and independent roasters: from a lot of green to a cup served, kept in one ledger. The design workbench opens free, to dial targets and read the projection; new records, saved designs, live logging, import, export and labels are OLLA Pro — available as a monthly or annual subscription, or as a one-time buyout. Payment is handled by the Apple App Store; we never see your payment details, and the purchase receipt is verified on your device. A subscription can be managed or cancelled at any time in iOS Settings, and Restore Purchases brings it back on a new device or a fresh install.

Pre-roast design: settle the roast before you charge — turn the dials for first crack, drop and development ratio, and the first-crack window, the drop window and the weight loss are worked out for you. No machine needed; when the evidence is thin the projection is drawn dashed with the missing piece named. Live logging and the curve library: big buttons punch charge, yellow, first crack and drop, and curves can be replayed, compared across batches, or set as a baseline. Curves can also be imported in eleven formats: Artisan (JSON, .alog, CSV), RoasTime JSON, Roast World CSV, Giesen CSV, ROEST CSV, IKAWA CSV, Loring CSV, Kaleido and generic CSV.

Inventory is one ledger: a layer each for green and roasted, an internal code on every bag, and intake, counts, packing, sales and write-offs on the same run of movements, with cost and valuation always in view; the ledger is delivered as CSV, spreadsheet and PDF. Labels build bag labels and shelf cards from real data, as PDF, PNG, an A4 sheet, or straight to system printing. Alongside these are multi-sample assessments (exported as a report), roast experiments, plans (optionally written into the iOS calendar), stock and date reminders (local notifications), and a roaster catalog with calibration.

Roast, green, roasted, blend, experiment and plan records kept before 1.3.0 are not locked: without a membership you can still view, compare, edit and delete them and export a JSON backup — only adding is closed, along with delivering (exports, label output and assessments).

If you have no roasts of your own, the first visit to the roasting tab fills this device with a demo ledger from an invented roastery — green lots, roasted lots, batches, curves, labels and an assessment — so every page shows its real shape. Demo data stays on this device: it is never synced to iCloud and never included in a backup, it is cleared the moment you become a member, and Clear all data clears it too. The masthead and a banner always read DEMO; the content is invented and represents no real business.

Roast Curve Imports & Artisan Compatibility

Roast to Cup imports eleven roast-curve formats: Artisan JSON, Artisan .alog and Artisan CSV, RoasTime JSON and Roast World CSV, Giesen Profiler CSV, ROEST CSV, IKAWA CSV, Loring CSV, Kaleido, and mappable CSV, TSV or TXT files. When adding a roaster you can pick from a built-in catalog of 35 machine models with official specs. Source, delimiter, time axis, and temperature unit detection runs on your device; files and raw second-by-second samples are not uploaded to OLLA’s servers.

Roast curves are read and parsed by OLLA Roast Core, a toolkit developed by OLLA; OLLA contains none of Artisan’s code, and “Artisan” is used only to describe file compatibility; OLLA is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the project. Third-party names and marks remain the property of their respective owners.

View the official Artisan project and license

Toolbox

OLLA includes a set of coffee tools for daily brewing and reference, including:

• Brew timer with stepped recipes
• Recipe library
• Ratio calculator
• Extraction-yield calculator
• Espresso Lab
• Brewing water recipe tool
• Cupping score sheet
• Grind Guide
• Roast reader
• Flavor wheel

Water Recipe works with two bottles: make a Hardness bottle and a Buffer bottle once, then under "Mix today's water" enter how much water you want (0.25–5 L), and the tool gives the weight of each bottle and of distilled water. The bottles are for mixing only; do not drink them undiluted.

A filter or immersion brew record with a TDS reading and a dose shows "Open in Extraction tool" on its detail page; the tool picks the dripper or immersion formula from the record's brewer, and can write TDS and extraction back to the record. Espresso records do not have it: their verdict is on the record page, and their tool is Espresso Lab.

After timing a shot in Espresso Lab you can log it as a brew: pick a bean card on the row above the button (optional), and dose, yield, time and TDS go into the brew form and are saved as an espresso record. The lab's stopwatch stops by itself at 60 seconds; a shot time typed into the brew form can go up to 120 seconds.

Besides the standard calculation, the Ratio calculator has three more modes: Iced, Bypass and Cold brew. Iced splits the total water into hot water to pour and ice in the server; Bypass splits it into brew water and water added after brewing; Cold brew gives the steeping water, and how much concentrate and water or milk go into one glass. When an Iced or Bypass recipe is carried into the timer, brewed as handed over and logged, the record keeps water and ratio on the total (hot water plus ice, or brew water plus the water added afterwards), with a line in the notes giving both parts; if the dose or ratio was changed in the timer, only the water actually poured is recorded.

The Grind Guide covers 91 grinders (32 hand, 44 home electric, 15 commercial). To choose one, search by brand or model, or filter by All / Hand / Home electric / Commercial; the converter between grinders uses the same chooser. Each grinder's card has a line saying where its settings come from: the maker's own guide, or Honest Coffee Guide's chart for that model, which is a third-party chart and not a measurement by the maker or by us. Where the maker publishes no setting per brew method, the tool says so and lists no settings. Every setting is a place to start: count from your own grinder's zero, brew once, then adjust to taste.

Each tile on the Tools page has one small motion, replayed at random while the page is open; only decorative marks move, and a reading never changes its value or position. With Reduce Motion turned on in iOS Settings → Accessibility → Motion, the motions stop and only the fade-in of the reading remains.

Reminders

You can set local reminders for bean cards, such as reminders for resting progress or suggested drinking windows.

These reminders are scheduled on your device through the iOS notification system. They do not require a push server and do not upload your bean card or brew log data. Notification permission is requested only when you enable reminder-related features, and you can turn it off at any time in iOS Settings.

iCloud Sync & Sign in with Apple

You can optionally use Sign in with Apple to create a local identity and enable iCloud sync: bean cards, brew logs, cupping records, favorites, and preferences are written into the private iCloud container under your own Apple ID and sync across your devices automatically (on cold start, on returning to the foreground, or via Sync Now).

This data moves only between your own devices and your own iCloud — we do not operate account servers and cannot access or receive it. You can sign out at any time, turn off the app’s iCloud permission in iOS Settings, or use Restore from Backup. Automatic multi-device sync is part of OLLA Pro; without it your data stays complete on this device, and JSON backup export remains free forever.

Local-First · Private · Trilingual

Your personal app data is stored on your device (and in your own iCloud if you choose to enable it). All core features work without an account.

Core features are designed to work locally. The app may connect to the network only for limited purposes, such as checking for public coffee reference content updates or industry reference content. These requests do not include your bean cards, brew logs, cupping records, notes, favorites, or other personal coffee data. The optional Apple sign-in and iCloud sync are Apple system services — your data never passes through our servers. See the Privacy Policy (updated 2026-10-10).

OLLA supports Simplified Chinese, English, and Japanese. It also includes multiple appearance themes, including light and dark styles.

Data export and import are available in Settings → Data, including full JSON backup and CSV export where supported.

Data & Accuracy

OLLA's coffee codex and tools draw on public industry standards, official sources, and community references; each entry and recipe is labeled by source confidence (verified / community / approximate). Some information — dates, competition and auction records, grind settings, community recipes — is compiled from public sources and may be dated or differ from an official figure. All of it is provided for reference and learning, not as authoritative or professional advice. If you spot anything inaccurate or out of date, please email us — we genuinely appreciate corrections and update the data.

Roast-log metrics — total time, first crack, development ratio (DTR), weight loss, and the drying / Maillard / development phase split — are all computed in real time from the events you punch or import; when a key event is missing and a value cannot be computed, the app says so plainly and never fabricates a curve, ratio, or reading. Stock is the same: green and roasted remaining are derived from the weights you enter and actual usage, left blank when a weight is absent. Color readings keep the scale you chose (Agtron, Tonino, and so on) with no cross-scale conversion.

The first-crack window, the drop window and the weight loss that pre-roast design gives you are projections. When the evidence is thin the projection is drawn dashed with the reason named (no roaster bound yet, an unknown range, an axis inferred from the file); the judgement stays yours, and we do not make the call for you. Demo data is an invented sample, there so that every page shows its real shape; it represents no real business and should not be used as a reference figure. The app does not score anything with AI, and it does not judge roast level from a photograph.

FAQ

Contact

Email: support@ollabrewlab.com

Website: https://ollabrewlab.com/ · Online version of this page: https://ollabrewlab.com/support

For bug reports, please include:

• Device model
• iOS version
• App version
• Steps to reproduce the issue
• Screenshots if relevant

Legal

Privacy Policy: /privacy

© 2026 OLLA Brew Lab. All rights reserved.

OLLA Brew Lab and OLLA are names used for this app and related services.

Third-party brand, product, and standard names mentioned in the app (such as Hario, AeroPress, SCA, and others) are used for reference and educational purposes only and belong to their respective owners. OLLA Brew Lab is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them.