Cherokee County roastery serves up coffee with 'soul'

HOLLY SPRINGS, Ga. - You drink your coffee every morning, but chances are you’re not really sure where the beans are grown or where it’s roasted.

That is, of course, unless you’re drinking Alma Coffee.

"All the coffee comes from our farms in Central America, in Honduras … they come from the farm directly here," Alma Coffee co-founder Harry Hutchins told us last year, during our first visit to the Alma Coffee roastery in Cherokee County. During that morning, we got a first look inside Alma’s bustling production facility, which was a dream of Hutchins and his wife Leticia, a fifth-generation coffee farmer.  

Their goal was to sustainably grow coffee in Honduras and then bring it directly to Georgia, where it’s roasted and bagged and sold online and by local retail partners. In other words, there’s no middleman in getting the coffee from bean to cup.  

Letitia’s father Al Lopez, a native of Honduras and veteran of the United States Army, is a co-founder and co-owner of the business and explained why he believes so many people have turned to Alma Coffee (‘alma,’ by the way, is the Spanish word for ‘soul’): "We care for this coffee, from planting the seed, providing TLC for four years before our first harvest; we process it, we export it, we import it, and here, these guys do a phenomenal job roasting it."

Since our visit a year ago, the Alma team says sales have only increased; despite the challenges of the pandemic, they say a focus on e-commerce and strategic additions including a roastery cafe have helped them grow their business and gain new fans across North Georgia. The cafe is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays and is located at the production facility at 3448 Holly Springs Parkway in Canton.  

Since it’s been a full year since our last visit, we decided it was a good time to schedule a return trip and see how things are going inside the Cherokee County warehouse; click here for more information on Alma Coffee and click the video player in this article for a look at our morning doing a little bit of roasting … and a whole lot of coffee drinking!

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