Simon Lévelt Maliba Kasese Natural 2021

It's been a while since we've got some coffee from Simon Lévelt, but since we enjoy their tea a lot as well we added this to the order. Come to think of it, I think the last order was even before we ground our beans ourselves!

When opening the package, these beans smelled sweeter than any I've smelled before. It is Almost as if these came from a candy store, or that they were treated with honey.

The beans are roasted medium to medium dark, which allows for a much easier extraction than other lighter roasts. Even my initial runny 20 second "dialing in shot" had some real character and depth, with very sweet tones punching through.

After dialing in the grind it produced a very nice smooth, thick and sweet espresso using the flair with a great palate of flavour notes. We also used these beans for aeropress. Infusion brewing is where these beans really shine and bring out a tasty cup of coffee.

One thing that I did notice was that it was quite hard to get some good crema out of these beans. This indicates to me that the beans were either not that fresh or the package is not sealed as well as the plastic bags with built in valves that most specialty roasters use nowadays. The bags also don't feature a roast date, but only a "best until" date.