Aurora

Asheville, NC · Est. 2018

A quieter way
to drink coffee.

Three single-origin lots, roasted in two-kilo batches on a 1957 Probat. Sourced from farmers we know by name, shipped within 48 hours of the cooling tray.

Shop the harvest Read our story
Lots
3
Roast
Probat 1957
Batch
2kg
A hand pouring water from a gooseneck kettle over a paper filter
No. 001 — The Pour

We started Aurora in a converted bicycle shop on the south side of Asheville with a used drum roaster, a kitchen scale, and a notebook full of questions about why most coffee tasted the same.

Six years on, the shop has grown a little quieter. We roast twice a week, in two-kilo batches, on a 1957 Probat we call Greta. Every lot is logged by hand — bean temperature, drum speed, the moment the first crack settles into a slow patter like rain on tin.

We buy directly from three farms: a cooperative in Yirgacheffe, a single estate in Huila, and a third-generation farmer in Nyeri. We pay above market and we visit when we can. The rest is restraint — light enough to taste the place, never so light it tastes like an idea.

Meet the lots

The cup tastes like a place I'd like to know better — black currant on the front, brown sugar at the finish, and somewhere in the middle, the patience of whoever picked it.

Margaret Hollis Tasting Notes, Issue No. 47

Chapter 02 · Rituals

Four ways to slow down
a Tuesday morning.

There is no single right method. There is only the one you'll repeat enough times to learn its small honesty. Here are ours, in the order we reach for them.

  1. 01

    The Pour-Over

    4 minutes

    30g coffee, 500g water at 96°C. Bloom for 45 seconds, then pour in slow concentric circles. The water should never rush; it should ask permission.

  2. 02

    The French Press

    6 minutes

    Coarse grind, 1:15 ratio, water just off the boil. Stir once at four minutes, plunge gently at six. Pour all of it — letting it sit on the grounds dulls the cup.

  3. 03

    The Aeropress

    2 minutes

    Inverted, 17g coffee, 220g water at 88°C. Steep ninety seconds, swirl, flip, press for thirty. The cleanest cup we know, and the most forgiving.

  4. 04

    The Cold Brew

    14 hours

    Coarse grind, 1:8 ratio, room-temperature water. Steep overnight in a glass jar on the counter. Strain through a paper filter the next morning. Drink it slow.