How many grams is a tablespoon of coffee?

There is no reliable answer, which is the point. It varies with roast level and grind size because both change how densely the coffee packs, so the same spoon delivers different masses from different bags.

What resolution should a coffee scale have?

0.1 g. At 1 g resolution, a 20 g dose carries a five per cent error before you have brewed anything, and an 18 g espresso dose carries more.

Do I need to weigh the water as well?

Weighing water is the easiest way to hit a ratio, and one millilitre is close enough to one gram. Weighing the finished beverage matters more: extraction yield and espresso ratio are both defined on beverage mass.

Is a coffee scale with a timer worth it?

It is convenient rather than necessary. Resolution and capacity are what determine whether the scale can do the job; a separate timer, or CupTune's brew timer, covers the rest.

The cheapest upgrade

Why a scoop cannot be a recipe

A tablespoon measures volume. Coffee recipes need mass. Those are not the same thing, and the gap between them is why your coffee changes when you switch bags.

Grind changes particle size, and particle size changes how much coffee fits in a spoon. A volume measure quietly re-doses your recipe every time you change the grinder.

Why a scoop drifts

Roasting drives water out of the bean and expands it, so a dark-roasted bean is physically larger and lighter than the same bean roasted lighter. Grind finer and the particles pack more densely into the same spoon. Between those two effects, a level tablespoon of coffee is a mass that moves — and your ratio moves with it, without you changing anything you can see.

That is the whole argument. Not precision for its own sake: a scoop is a recipe that silently rewrites itself.

What resolution you actually need

0.1 g is the useful resolution, and it is cheap. For a 20 g filter dose, 1 g resolution is a 5 per cent error on the thing your whole ratio is built from. For an 18 g espresso dose, it is worse.

Capacity matters as much as resolution: you want to weigh a full brewer and its water, so around 2 kg is comfortable and 500 g is limiting. A timer built in is convenient; it is not the reason to buy.

Weigh the beverage too

Most people weigh the dose and stop. Weighing what comes out is what makes the rest of the site work: it is what turns a plan into a record. Extraction yield needs a measured beverage mass, espresso ratio is defined on beverage mass, and comparing two brews is only meaningful if you know what each one actually produced. CupTune's journal keeps those numbers per brew, on your device.

Tare, and the one habit worth building

Tare the scale with the empty brewer on it, add coffee, tare again, then brew onto it. Two taring habits give you dose and beverage mass with no arithmetic. Write both down, along with the grind setting — the journal is there so you do not have to trust your memory of last Tuesday.

The limits of the instrument

Cheap scales drift, respond slowly and can be thrown off by a hot brewer or a draught. A scale makes your brews comparable with each other; it does not make your numbers comparable with somebody else's equipment. And no measurement replaces tasting the coffee.