'It brings him joy:' Ayden man uses coffee to take people back to simpler times

These days it seems there is a new brewery opening every week on every corner, but a man in the small town of Ayden has other ideas. He hopes to bring people back to a simpler time, when a cup of black coffee and a porch swing were all you needed on a Saturday night.

Posted 10:43 p.m. Aug 15, 2019 — Updated 10:49 p.m. Aug 16, 2019

AYDEN, N.C. — These days it seems there is a new brewery opening every week on every corner, but a man in the small town of Ayden has other ideas. He hopes to bring people back to a simpler time, when a cup of black coffee and a porch swing were all you needed on a Saturday night.

Matthew Wright opened Lanoca Coffee, a one-man coffee roasting operation in about 1,100 square feet of space, on Second Street. Pitt County is a place where you may not expect to find small-batch, artisan coffee.

“I love coffee because I first had it when I was 5 or 6 years old,” he said.

Wright's coffee is not a hipster endeavor, instead he relies heavily on nostalgia as part of his coffee roasting process.

“Growing up, I'd spend a lot of time at my great-aunt's house." Wright said that's where his love of coffee began. “We'd have to go to the grocery store, A&P or Winn Dixie, and just about every visit was a bag of Eight O'Clock Coffee, that red bag of Eight O'Clock Coffee, and they had the grinder in the shop, and I fell in love with the smell of that coffee in the grocery store.”

Wright, 47, said his passion for coffee has never waned.

“Got the first roasting equipment and beans about seven a half years ago at Christmas. About six months later, I told my wife in the middle of a Walmart that I was going to be a coffee roaster and have our own roaster one day," he said.

“I never doubted it,” Sandy Wright said. "It brings him joy, it really does."

That roasting profession is now becoming a mission.

“The Lanoca Coffee Institute,” Matthew Wright said.

Wright is moving the operation to a building in Farmville, a place more than three times the size of his original location. He likes to call himself a coffee evangelist.

At the institute, Wright imagines a coffee club where people can learn about roasting, taste various coffees from around the world and even travel to the countries where coffee is grown.

“It's one of those things, you either love something or you don't,” he said. "This black, hot liquid has flavors I find appealing.”

Lanoca Coffee opens in Farmville on Saturday, Aug. 17, at 10 a.m. The store is located at 3856 South Main Street.

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