'Farm To Cup': Woodstock Couple Opening Alma Coffee

HOLLY SPRINGS, GA — Growing up, Leticia and Harry Hutchins, both 25-years-old, never imagined they would be creating their own coffee, let alone soon opening two coffee shops in Cherokee County where they are from.

The two met in high school and each had career goals to study accounting in college, which they both did in Chicago. They were so successful, they each landed an internship with two major public accounting firms.

"We thought, 'we are set,'" Leticia said. "We got two full-time offers. Harry became a CPA. Then six months into our jobs in Chicago, we felt like we were not doing our part to make this society and our world a better place."

So they started looking for a way to just do that. They got more involved with Leticia's dad's family farm. Her dad, who was born and raised in Honduras, has been in the coffee industry his whole life. So when he came to the U.S., he didn't understand why farmers were starving when coffee is the second largest traded commodity in the world, Leticia said. So in 2010, her dad got to work, eliminated the middle man, and gave farmers and roasters a better price for their coffee.

When Harry and Leticia were feeling like they needed a change, they visited the farm in Honduras and fell in love with everything, including the impact it was having on the community, the way it was changing other farmers' lives and the opportunity of employment he was giving to that town.

"In Honduras, your only options are having cattle, staying at home and being mom, or getting into criminal activity," Leticia said. "He's been able to break that and give people a career their future generations can be part of as well. We fell in love and wanted to be a part of that."

So the couple began researching and decided to begin vertical integration with roasting and opening coffee shops. Thus, Alma Coffee was born.

"We chose the name Alma because it means 'soul' in Spanish," Leticia said. "We have put our entire heart and soul into this business, and we wanted a name that was representative of that."

Alma Coffee's headquarters is in Holly Springs, 3448 Holly Springs Parkway, and is where they manufacture and roast their coffee. The shop is not open to the public every day, but will be open for events from time to time.

Their next event is an open house on Friday, May 3 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Alma will be roasting batches of beans, doing cuppings, and there will be games, a raffle and coffee stations.

The front of the building is an old home the previous owner turned into office space. So the couple is working on turning that into a coffee shop over the next year or so.

But their first coffee shop will open later this month or early June in downtown Woodstock on the Chattahoochee Tech campus in the student center called The Circuit, 1 Innovation Way.

"We wanted to do it in Cherokee County because we love the south and Cherokee County," Leticia said. "We really enjoyed being here in high school and felt like this area needed something like this. We moved back a year ago to start this adventure, and we have enjoyed every single minute of it. We are excited our roastery is up and running, we have two coffee shops on the way. But most importantly, we are happy about the impact we're making on coffee farmers in Honduras."

Although the company is young, Leticia said they are able to "adopt" some farmers, which they call "almadoptions."

"It means we commit to buying their production for the year as long as they keep up with their quality, and we'll pay them a fair price," she said. "We define that as up to 60-80 percent more than market for their green bean."

While the couple was nervous to jump into this new venture, they said they had an overwhelming feeling this is what they were meant to do.

"It's hard to explain, it's just a feeling you get," Leticia said. "We have never worked harder in our lives when we started this business, but we've never been happier or more fulfilled. And that's what we feel value in. There's a huge risk and every day we are learning something new. There is no paved path. A lot of these things is like reinventing the wheel. We are so young that we don't have a lot of experience so it's a lot of trial and error and making things work with what we have."

Follow Alma Coffee on social media @myalmacoffee or at www.myalmacoffee.com.