How is the error measured?

As the distance between the graduation line and where the surface actually settled, expressed as a percentage of the height of the vessel. Overshooting and stopping short count the same way.

Can I play with the sound off?

Yes. The surface and the line are both visible, so the same precision is available silently. The sound is there for when you would rather not watch.

What does the Daily Dopa compare?

The average error across three glasses — smaller is a higher grade. The three target positions are all decided at the start of the day, so however long you take over each pour, the task is the same.

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Hitting the mark

tokutoku

It pours while you hold. Stop on the line.

How to play

It pours only while you are holding the screen. Let go when the liquid reaches the line. The smaller the gap, the better the record. Three in a row on the line is the finish.

Notes on the feel

The pouring sound climbs with the level, exactly as it does over a real glass, so you can stop by ear with your eyes elsewhere. The flow drops off over the last tenth to leave you room to aim.

What is this, really?

The line on a measuring jug. The rim of a wooden measure. The graduations on a coffee server. The single etched mark on a beer glass. Everywhere in the world that something gets poured, there is a line at which it must stop. A line means that the times you stopped on it and the times you went past are now two different things. In kitchens, laboratories and bars, somebody is aiming at that one line dozens of times a day.

Sound is what makes it possible. As liquid fills a vessel the pitch of the pour climbs, so "nearly" arrives in your ears before it arrives in your eyes. Eyes, ears and fingers all working on one line at once makes this a kind of target practice.

And it is target practice with no opponent. Nobody is competing and nobody is watching; you set the line and then you hit your own line. Nobody sees the perfect glass, and it is oddly pleasing anyway. This toy is the last second of that.

How it is done where it comes from

Pouring for real, the trick is to cut the flow slightly before the line. Keep the same rate to the end and the surface rocks the moment you stop, and you overshoot after all. The reason professionals finish with a thin trickle is to keep that movement small enough to read the line through.

Here the flow drops away over the last tenth for the same reason: it leaves you room to aim. The surface also keeps moving for a moment after you release, exactly as it does in a real glass, so stopping precisely on the line means stopping a fraction before it. The pitch of the pour rises with the level, so you can stop by ear with your eyes elsewhere. Three glasses in a row on the line is the finish, and the third is reliably the hardest — not because anything changes, but because by then you are trying not to lose the two you already have.

Questions people ask

How is the error measured?: As the distance between the graduation line and where the surface actually settled, expressed as a percentage of the height of the vessel. Overshooting and stopping short count the same way.
Can I play with the sound off?: Yes. The surface and the line are both visible, so the same precision is available silently. The sound is there for when you would rather not watch.
What does the Daily Dopa compare?: The average error across three glasses — smaller is a higher grade. The three target positions are all decided at the start of the day, so however long you take over each pour, the task is the same.