In English, ' a brat’ is also used to refer to a spoiled child in a bit of a derogatory way.

I find it fits the image people often have of me, although the opposite is true.

Things like commercials, posters and art have always caught my attention.

By switching from a general secondary school to art education, I had the luck to discover Photoshop.

However, only being able to manipulate images in Photoshop quickly felt too limiting to me.

It triggered me to explore how I could create myself.

Although I also like to take on assignments, the artist's freedom is at its best when creating just for himself.

Projects like Ol’dane and the A’pen series were really exciting, as was the personal project Jackie that originated from a childhood photo of my partner and already exists in many versions.

In the meantime, the stickers can be spotted in many European cities like Berlin, Porto and Paris.

Two years later, I joined the company.

We all like a simple roast that is accessible yet high in quality.

Our homemade cakes and food are also something we are proud of.

And of course, above all, we love creating a warm and familiar atmosphere.

A surplus is being able to show my art to all our customers.

Everything everyone creates is more important than belonging to a self-chosen select circle of artists that defines art by what suits them.

Enjoying the creative process is what matters most."

My earliest coffee memory goes back to childhood.

Funny enough, I didn't actually like coffee at all back then; that only came much later, in my twenties.

But like many kids, I loved dipping a speculoos (Biscoff) biscuit into my parents' coffee whenever I got the chance.

What I remember most, though, is how coffee always seemed to bring people together.

Senmon grew naturally from our coffee bar and a shared curiosity about coffee.

As we spent more time working with specialty coffee and connecting with roasters across Europe, we wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the coffee we were serving and have more control over the final cup.

A big part of that journey was Adri.

He has always had a remarkable palate, shaped by years of exploring tea and a deep interest in flavours through cooking.

I introduced him to specialty coffee and showed him that coffee could be much closer to tea than most people imagine.

Suddenly, there were coffees with floral aromatics, vibrant fruit notes, and incredible complexity.

That discovery sparked something, and before long, we were both obsessed with exploring what coffee could be.

What started as a desire to learn together eventually evolved into a roasting project of its own.

Today, Senmon allows us to share coffee that reflects our persona

Curiosity was definitely the biggest driver.

The more we learned about coffee, the more we wanted to understand how different roasting decisions could influence sweetness, balance, texture, acidity and so on.

It gave us the opportunity to discover our own preferences more.

Roasting felt like the missing piece of the puzzle.

That's actually a difficult question to answer because we're still in the early stages of our journey.

At the moment, we're roasting on a small scale while juggling a lot of other responsibilities.

I (Clifford) still run our coffee bar, Klik, on a daily basis, while Adri has a full-time job and spends much of his free time crafting custom handmade Japanese knives.

Because of that, our days are a mix of just about everything: roasting, tasting, packing, sourcing, maintaining equipment, serving customers (tasting with them lots of times), and constantly learning along the way.

We're still very much in the phase of wearing multiple hats and figuring things out as we go.

Hopefully, as Senmon continues to grow, we'll find a little more balance.

For now, we're simply trying to enjoy the process, while putting as much care into everything as possible.

Our goal is always to showcase the character of the coffee and find the roast profile that suits it best.

We don't do dark roasts, and we don't work with traditional blends.

For us, coffee becomes most interesting when the origin, variety, processing method, and terroir are allowed to speak for themselves.

Our role as roasters is simply to help reveal those qualities as clearly and deliciously as possible.

We look for coffees with a good identity.

That can mean vibrant fruit notes, elegant florals, comforting sweetness, sparkling acidity, or even something wonderfully funky and unexpected.

There isn't one specific profile we're chasing.

What matters for us is that the coffee just has some really nice flavors and is exceptional within its own style.

If a coffee excites us and keeps us coming back for another cup, that's usually a very good sign.

It's difficult to point to a single coffee because it was more of a gradual journey than one defining moment.

I still remember tasting some of the first lighter roasted coffees from Caffenation and realising that coffee could be something completely different from what I had known before.

Later, during visits to Berlin, we were amazed by the incredible sweetness and clarity of the coffees served at The Barn.

Then came Dutch roasters like Friedhats and Rum Baba, whose wildly expressive and often super funky coffees completely blew my mind. Each of those experiences expanded my understanding of what coffee could be.

Suddenly, coffee wasn't just a plain bitter flavour anymore. We were tasting jasmine, tropical fruit, berries, fermentation notes, and levels of sweetness we never thought possible in a cup of coffee.

Looking back, it wasn't one coffee that changed everything, it was a series of coffees and people in the scene that slowly opened the door to specialty coffee.

Once that door was open, there was no going back.

The curiosity just kept growing, and ultimately it led us to start Senmon ourselves.

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