Small Batch Artisan Roasted™
Our experienced Master Roasters handcraft every batch of Ancora Coffee. This painstaking technique exemplifies our commitment to excellence. Here's the full story...

True Specialty Coffees
We are dedicated to sharing the craft and romance of true specialty coffees, from family farms and cooperatives in the world's greatest growing areas. These farmers have grown traditional Arabica plant types for generations. The plants require more care than modern hybrids, but they produce beans with unmatched flavor, and will keep the land fertile for the next generation.

Every year, the farmers set aside a few bags of their best beans to carry the estate's trademark. We roast and cup dozens of samples of these estate beans to find just the right coffees for Ancora.

Ancora's Artisan Roast
At Ancora's full-city Artisan roast, coffee beans are a lustrous chestnut brown with traces of oil on their surface. We call this "the sweet spot", and it's a magical place - coffee's sensory crossroad. Artisan roasting develops the incomparable flavor and heady aromatics of coffee to its maximum depth and complexity. It's the careful shaping of brightness and body into a balanced, solid structure that accents the flavor of the world's great coffees.

Click here to see various roast levels!


Artisan Roasters
Our roasts are directed by the human hand, not computer. The world's finest coffees demand an artisan's skill to bring out their individual character and complex flavors. Beans and roasting environment vary constantly, making perfect roasting an ever-changing target too complex for automated programs. Ancora's artisan-roasters honor the farmer's skill and dedication in each roast. They draw on years of experience and all their senses to develop the beans to the roast known as the 'sweet spot' - the peak point of flavor, body, aroma and brightness.

Small-batch Roasting
We roast in small batches to ensure every Ancora coffee you try is truly fresh and at its best. We pack and ship our coffee to reach you before most roasters even package their beans. Some roasters use nitrogen gas and foil bags for packaging, attempting to preserve coffee on a store shelf or a warehouse for months. Ancora's bags are clear so you see the fresh beans, and we freshness date each bag. We protect the delicate flavor from oxidation by using the coffee's own natural Carbon Dioxide.

At Ancora, we know coffee is fresh produce, not a can of beans. We guarantee you'll experience roaster-fresh flavor in every package!

Roasting Levels
Raw Green Coffee
Green coffee is the seed of the coffee tree, Coffea Arabica, which surprisingly has no "coffee" aroma. Specialty grade beans (shown here) are the largest, cleanest and most uniform offered on the world market. Beans such as these are the raw material for every Ancora coffee.


Café Bianco (White Coffee)
Lightly roasted coffee. As beans are heated, they change into a buttery gold color and develop a very mild, nutty flavor. This is Ancora Café Bianco. It's the coffee we use to make our signature drink, the 'White Zombie'.

Cinnamon (American) Roast
'Cinnamon' describes the light-colored roast used by most institutional coffee companies. When coffee was first marketed nationwide, it was the only roast color - hence 'American'. At this low temperature weight loss is minimized, so coffee is very economical to produce. However, coffee flavor is still largely undeveloped; cinnamon roast coffee tastes bright, thin and shallow.

City (Medium) Roast
Historically, urbanites preferred its added flavor development - hence 'City'. A darker roast means more shrinkage, so this roast costs more to produce. The basic flavor is still light and bright, but the extra roast adds a bit more body.

Ancora Artisan (Full City) Roast
Full city is the roast we choose for our Ancora Artisan Roast. This deeper roast is a perfect highlight for the richer flavor and body possessed by the Estate beans Ancora uses. The Full City roast, in the hands of our experienced Artisan roasters, has what we term the 'sweet spot' - a perfect harmony of brightness, flavor, aroma and body.

French Roast
French roast should be a rich, ebony brown (never black!), with a fully oily surface. Ancora's French Roasts are intense, savory, and rich with satisfying bittersweet and smoky flavors. They pack a full-flavored punch, without the burnt or astringent taste often found in other French roasts.