About Go Cup Yourself Coffee

Why Should You Go Cup Yourself?

Have you ever tasted a summer’s breeze with a lingering chocolate finish and heavy body. Wonder where the elaborate description on the side of your coffee bag comes from? The short answer is Coffee Cupping. The long answer is a marketing team creating flowery descriptions that will sell more coffee. But, Cupping is where it all begins. Personally Cupping different coffees will allow you to experience what you can actually taste. Go Cup Yourself will help you understand what you love about coffee, one cup at a time.

Go Cup Yourself roasts at Dark City Coffee Company's Toronto (Scarborough, Ontario) facility. Dark City Coffee offers one of the largest selections of single origin coffees you will find available to the public. Roasting our own coffee allows us to control quality, right up until you actual brew the coffee. We are not a slick marketing company that sells someone else’s coffee with our logo on it. We are coffee loving roasters who want to share the amazing coffees we’ve found. We source, we curate, we roast, we cup ...if we love it, we ship it to you.

I WANT TO CUP MYSELF

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

  • Coffee cupping is a formalized method of coffee tasting. It is an integral part of the coffee grading and categorization process. Similar to a scientific experiment, professional cupping follows a repeatable procedure to evaluate specific components of a roasted coffee. The results of a Coffee Cupping evaluate and score a coffee based on the overall experience of a coffee including the Fragrance, Flavour Profile, Acidity, Body, Uniformity, Balance, Sweetness, Cleanliness, Aftertaste (and often other characteristics if they benefit the purpose of the Cupping). The cupping results in a flavour profile and “score” for the coffee, allowing the Cupper to compare several coffees or even a specific coffee from different crops years. As Roasters cupping is especially useful when deciding among several samples from the same origin. Cupping also helps to determine the optimal roast for each coffee and test how coffees will perform together in a blend.

  • Coffee Growers, Buyers, Coffee Professionals, Q Graders, Coffee Roasters like us … And You should too! Coffee cupping allows people to evaluate and fully appreciate the flavours and characteristics of a specific coffee. It is used to determine the overall quality and value of a coffee. Cupping separates Specialty Coffee from mass commercial coffees and (pardon the pun) allows the cream to rise to the top. The first time you taste a hint of raspberry or citrus in a coffee’s flavour profile you will be hooked. Cupping will elevate your LOVE of coffee to an OBSESSION.

  • Cupping is an activity used to evaluate and offer a score for a particular coffee sample. It judges a coffee based on Fragrance and Aroma (Dry and Wet Smell), Flavour, Aftertaste, Acidity (Taste of "Brightness" in a good way or "Sour" in a bad way), Body (Mouthfeel), Balance, Uniformity, Clean Cup, Sweetness (often coming across as mildly fruity), Defects (with regards to Taste) and an Overall rating/opinion of the coffee. A Grading below 80 is determined to be “Not Specialty” and above 80 “Specialty” with the top ratings between 90-100 (100 would have to be an act of the coffee gods) being “Outstanding”. Understanding the professional Cupping process will help you gain an understanding of what your coffee has gone though and allow you to cup consistently in larger groups. It will also help to expand your flavour vocabulary and create a reliable log of coffees you’ve tried. There are often cuppings held at Specialty Coffee shops that will let you experience the true nature of a Cupping. Through Dark City Coffee, Go Cup Yourself may hold public Cuppings from time to time if you are interested please feel free to contact us. If you would like to cup as closely as possible to professional standards visit the SCAA’s website for Cupping Protocols (you can download their PDF at https://www.scaa.org/PDF/resources/cupping-protocols.pdf). While you likely won’t have the unroasted green coffee on hand or a Colour Reading Device you can get a detailed understanding of the terms and point system used within the coffee industry.

  • Are you a professional coffee grower, buyer or grader? If so then you should probably stick to the method set out by the Specialty Coffee Association to maintain consistency and a level of professionalism. If not then we suggest that you…GO CUP YOURSELF! The beautifully roasted coffee in front of you has been professionally Graded and Cupped half a dozen times (at least once by us). Cupping Yourself is for personal enjoyment, palate experience and bragging rights that you’ve tasted another great coffee. The Go Cup Yourself Coffee that you are about to try has been selected for its unique flavour profile and character. Use our interactive cupping game as a tool to pinpoint flavours and expand your coffee loving experience.

  • The Flavour Wheel used on this website has been modified from, but is based on and draws inspiration from the SCAA’s flavour wheel. The SCAA flavour wheel is the industry standard for cupping professionals and an extremely useful tool when grading coffee. The original Coffee Taster’s Flavour Wheel can be found at https://www.scaa.org/ along with invaluable information regarding specialty coffee.

  • Of Course! A Go Cup Yourself subscription is the ultimate gift for the coffee lover who has everything. To keep it simple we offer a 3 month Gift Subscription that includes 3 coffees and some swag or cupping tools. It’s actually an awesome gift that your recipient will love. Also, it’s prepaid and only 3 month, so if you change your mind about the person you’re not stuck with an ongoing bill or an awkward “why did the amazing coffee stop” conversation.

    To buy GCY as a gift simply click the gift option, enter the shipping address and details of the recipient along with the payment details for the subscription. If you're not sure of the shipping details, email us at coffee@gocupyourself.com and let us know. We will send your recipient an email with instructions on how to proceed. We will take care of the rest.

  • If there is a coffee you love (and we know there will be), feel free to contact us and we will let you know if we have any more in stock. If we are out of a particular coffee, Dark City maintains a huge selection of single origin coffees, that you, as a subscriber, will have access to at a discount (conditions may apply).

  • Go Cup Yourself Coffee is roasted at Dark City Coffee Company in Scarborough, Ontario. Dark City Coffee Company has been an ongoing force in artisanal roasted specialty coffee since the 1980’s. Dark City Coffee is open to the public and allows you to actually watch your coffee being roasted. They carry a huge selection of single origin coffees and are experienced in specialty coffee from every corner of the world. By roasting the coffee at Dark City Coffee we are able to control the quality of as many aspects as we can up until you actual brew the coffee. We are not a slick marketing company that sells you someone else’s coffee with our logo on it. We are coffee roasters who love to share the amazing coffees we’ve found. We curate it, we roast it, we cup it, if we love it we ship it to you.

  • From the moment your coffee is roasted it is beginning to stale. The coffee you receive from Go Cup Yourself is shipped the day it was roasted by Dark City Coffee. The roast date is either listed on the bag or on the cupping page for a particular coffee. It will be gassing off (look it up) for a few days, but ready to cup the moment you receive it.

  • You can prepare Go Cup Yourself however you like. Personally, after we’ve cupped a coffee here at the roastery, I like to cold brew the coffee overnight and re-cup it. The cold brew removes most of the aroma experience and allows me to taste every detail offering a true feel for the body and aftertaste, if it tastes great cold, it will be spectacular hot!

  • Wow, that is a very personal question! You should brew your coffee however you like it and don’t let anyone tell you differently. Since you’re asking though, we at Go Cup Yourself and Dark City Coffee prefer open methods (such as Pour Over and French Press) where you can watch the coffee brew and allow the it breath/gas off as it blooms. This will optimize the extraction on freshly roasted coffee. It also allows for single cups to be brewed for our quality control and personal cupping purposes. After about a week once the coffee has degassed and for larger quantities, brew however you feel comfortable.

  • While we do offer grinding options for those who request it, you are missing out on a huge part of the coffee cupping experience if you don’t grind your own beans. Whole bean coffee stays fresher longer and stores better than ground coffee. Experimenting with the grind coarseness allows you to find the optimal extraction specific brewing method. Grinding your own coffee is also an integral part of the coffee brewing ritual, the sound, the smell, the anticipation …who are we kidding YES YOU SHOULD GRIND YOUR OWN COFFEE!

  • As a self respecting coffee lover you need a coffee grinder! You can purchase a grinder on our website or anywhere out there in the coffee drinking world. We suggest a burr grinder with coarseness settings. This will allow you to adjust the grind for different brewing methods while getting a consistent grind once you find a coarseness that works best for you.

  • The bag you receive your freshly roasted coffee in is meant as a vessel to transport coffee. Coffee should be stored in an airtight container out of direct sunlight. While you do want carbon dioxide to escape from the beans you don’t want to expose them to oxygen. We offer an airtight storage container that we love on our website, but as long as you are storing your coffee in a cool, dry, airtight as possible place, you’re okay with us.

  • Short answer is, we wouldn’t, but you can if you want to. Think of your coffee as food, it is never as fresh tasting once its been frozen. As an active Go Cup Yourself Subscriber you have a freshly roasted pound of coffee coming within the next four weeks and can always order fresh coffee from Dark City Coffee Company. If you are going to freeze or refrigerate your coffee, remember to keep it in an airtight container and keep oxygen and moisture out. Coffee acts like a spouge for smells and flavours and can absorb the tastes of your fridge or freezer. If you are freezing coffee take out the amount you intend to use quickly and get the remaining coffee back in the freezer immediately. Moisture and air will degrade the coffee and ruin the flavour.

  • To change or cancel your subscription simply email coffee@gocupyourself.com with the subject line "Cancel Please".
    In the body of the email include your name and shipping address. We will be sad to see you go, but you will receive an email confirmation that your subscription has been canceled.

    You can cancel at any time, as long as it is before that month's roasting date (first Wednesday of every month). We only roast the coffee that is needed for our subscribers, so once the coffee has been roasted it is reserved for you and will be shipped.

  • The logo is a nod to the SCAA coffee taster’s cupping wheel. It is a symbol that directs and informs many of decisions we as coffee roasters make every day. You will find some variation of the Flavour Wheel at every step of the coffee supply chain. If you love and work in coffee, it is a part of your consciousness. As for the continuous line drawings, they represent the path that a coffee takes from the moment it is planted, through harvesting, sorting, grading, packaging, shipping, roasting, brewing and into your cup. It is truly beautiful the lengths that a coffee travels to add a small piece of luxury to your day.
    Also, we like them, they are clean, elegant and well balanced, just like a great cup of coffee.