OUR STORY
How it all began
The selection of coffee served at coffee hour is a hard decision for any church. Communities are diverse; you have coffee snobs, latte lovers, gas station guzzlers, and everyone in between in one place, drinking the same terrible coffee.
That is, everyone but Ella's dad, who for years managed to implement a contingency plan.
At every coffee hour, he'd give a young Ella the signal to sneak his mug out to the car where a thermos of his own pre-brewed black coffee waited.
"I can do one cup, or maybe a cup and a half of church coffee," Fr. Timothy used to say. "Never more."
It was Fr. Timothy's idea to start Coffee Hour Co. After decades of sneaking coffee into the church hall, his stories and others are coming to light. He decided that everybody should get a good cup of joe after the service. And in the Summer of 2023, he convinced us to be the ones to make it happen.
We opened our virtual doors in December of 2023, sourcing our coffee from a terrific roaster in New York State. As soon as we had opened, we were already eager to start roasting the coffee ourselves. A trip out to Coffee Crafters, an outstanding coffee roaster manufacturer in Idaho, solidified our plans. We knew what kind of roasting we wanted to do, and where we would buy our roaster.
The next big decision was location. We are blessed to have found a perfect little storefront, formerly used as a bakery/coffee shop, in small-town Hanceville, Alabama— a short drive from where we live.
After months of planning, preparing our shop for inspection, and test-roasting and tasting, we re-opened our online shop on July 10th, 2024 with coffee we were roasting ourselves.
The feedback on our coffee has been wonderful. Our friends, family, and soon even strangers were telling us how much they enjoyed it. Common threads include how smooth the coffee is; how it is bold but never bitter; how it doesn't give folks headaches, stomach aches, or other symptoms commonly associated with commercial coffee; how surprised they are to enjoy a cup of black, flavorful coffee.
On February 1st, 2025, the second part of our vision for the business came to life: the Tasting Room. We had thought up the Tasting Room many months prior, but Ella's third trimester, and then welcoming our sweet baby boy, set us back a little in terms of timing. But, that's the most beautiful part of starting our own business: we can put family first in our decisions. That's a true gift.
Our Tasting Room is a place where specialty coffee from around the world can be sampled in flights or pour-overs. We offer coffee not available in our online shop, that we are tasting ourselves for future blends and offerings. Or simply, that we find to be very unique and worth sharing with others.
Every month, the Tasting Room menu changes. In February, our highlighted coffee was a single origin from Columbia bursting with notes of white peach, raspberry, clove, and cinnamon. Its double anaerobic honey processing gives it a sweet and smooth mouthfeel. Everyone who's tried it has been happily shocked at what a unique and delicious coffee it is.
It's coffee like that we're most excited to share in the Tasting Room— coffee that makes you rethink what coffee can be.
Our Vision
We love being a micro-roastery you can count on for freshness, quality, and origin transparency. We plan to grow our online offerings in the coming months to include a lighter roast, and a unique festive blend (sign up for our email list at the bottom of this page if you'd like to know when these are available).
We have also started supplying coffee for church coffee hours, parish bookstores, offices, and select retail locations. If you're interested in partnering with us in such a capacity, visit our wholesale page— we'd love to hear from you.
We hope to continue growing our wholesale partnership with churches especially, demonstrating one cup at a time that church coffee doesn't have to be bad coffee. We pledge 10% of profit to the Orthodox Christian Mission Center, so our coffee is inspired by and made for the church in more ways than one.
We are also excited to continue getting to know our local community in the Hanceville-Cullman area, and beyond in greater Alabama, and how we can be of service as a coffee supplier.
We are blessed and grateful for how far we've come with this business, which was just a dream a couple of years ago. And we're really just getting started. Thank you so much for joining us along the way!
+Jacob & Ella Jerrell, founders
