Level Ground coffee is a Victoria, BC based company that specializes fair trade goods like coffee, tea, spices etc.
I have been drinking their Earl Grey tea for a long time and quite enjoy the bold flavor and aroma. For this reason, I grabbed a bag of their Columbia coffee when I was doing my grocery shopping.
Upon opening the bag, a strong aroma of dark chocolate popped. The sizes of the beans are very consistent and they look medium dark (City Roast) with almost no defects. Although this bag I have is about 3 months into the 12 months “best before date”, somehow I feel that this is still a very high quality bag of coffee. We’ll see when it goes through the Aeropress! ????
Putting the beans into the usual batteries of equipment, grinder set to 6, 20g of coffee and 200g of water through the Aeropress. It didn’t take long before a cup of dark brown looking liquid materialized.
This coffee had a very unique character that it smell fruity yet it tasted like dark chocolate.
Like I said earlier I don’t generally buy dark roast because I don’t like the heavily toasted after taste. This Columbia I am testing now is delightfully easy to go in, particularly the dark chocolate after taste is enjoyable. It is clean, flavorful and not bland.
On the second try, I was putting it on a simple pour-over. To be honest, I think the paper filter absorbed the “good stuff”, and made it less colorful but still very good.
Overall, I would give this coffee 9 out of 10 as it is a good blend for everyday or used for enjoyment over the weekend.