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About Toomer’s Coffee Roasters in Alabama

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Sandy & Trish in their newest retail location 2019

Visitors to Toomer’s Coffee Roasters™ original coffee shop in Auburn were often amused to find out our name really is Toomer.  However let me clear the air: we are “kissin-cousins” only to the Auburn Toomers.

However, my great-great-great Grandfather, Benjamin Toomer and two of his brothers, arrived as founding fathers of another famous town, Hilton Head, SC in the 1700’s.  I know all of this because my father, Fred Toomer,  helped write a book on the Toomer family history.

Early Years and Missionary Work

Trish and Sandy Toomer have been happily married for over 46 years and have two grown children.  Sandy is a native of Vestavia Hills, Alabama and Trish is from Hurricane, West Virginia.

From 1990-93 we were in training at Moody Aviation (a part of Moody Bible Institute) and after graduation, joined Mission Aviation Fellowship in 1993 and served as missionaries to the South American country of Ecuador.

Watch a short clip of Sandy landing in the Amazon Rain Forest (1998)

Sandy was a missionary pilot with MAF and flew [as a commercial pilot] nearly 3,000 hours serving missionaries and indigenous tribes of the Amazon rainforest while Trish provided hospitality for visitors to the Shell Ecuador base.  In that role as Hospitality Coordinator for MAF’s base in Shell, she provided a home away from home for hundreds of visitors and workers from churches worldwide each year and was the link and “shopper” for missionaries living in the jungle.  Harrison and Sarah attended Nate Saint Memorial School in Shell.

Since that time, in addition to Trish & Sandy’s joint venture, Toomer’s Coffee Company™, Sandy also has his hands in digital branding and an online marketing development company, Flying Tigers Media.

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 Click to play

Public Service

In 2014 I (Sandy) was asked to run for the Alabama State Legislature by a group of concerned local businessmen. It was a close race against a 16 year incumbent and the Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, with him winning by only a few hundred votes. 

Upon reflection, I saw it as just one more exciting chapter in an exciting life and an excellent opportunity to see real politics up close and personal. 

Today

Click to watch video

We first opened Toomer’s Coffee Roasters™ in downtown Opelika, a short hop from Auburn, in 2004.  However, since so many of our regular coffee-bean-buying customers were from Auburn, they kept after us to move the shop over to Auburn.

So, in August of 2005 we opened our doors in the University Village shopping center on South College Avenue, located right behind Loco’s. Since that time we have sold our retail shop interests

The Future

As of July 2013 we left the retail side of Toomer’s Coffee Roasters to new owners to focus our entire efforts on building and growing our wholesale business regionally and nationally which includes BOTH Toomer’s Coffee Roasters™ and Coffee 4 Missions™.

But now in 2019, having purchased our own property for the roastery we find we have ample space to expand and a great location to go back into the retail coffee shop world. 

So be looking for Toomer’s Coffee Shop to re-open in a new form sometime in the Fall of 2019!

Where do coffee beans come from?

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First, there are two types of coffee beans

Coffee beans come from two basic versions of coffee plants: either the Robusta ( aka Coffea robusta, or Coffea canephora) or Arabica (aka Coffea arabica) version.

At Toomer’s Coffee Roasters we do not roast or sell Robusta beans. I once asked our coffee broker how much Robusta they sell and she said less that 5% of their total volume is Robusta. While it is higher in caffeine content (the main reason I guess a dubious roaster might add it..to jack up the “vibrancy” of their blends), the overall taste issues and roasting peculiarities she said make it a less than desirable option.

Arabica beans on the other hand, while lower in caffeine content have a number of factors that make them the number #1 preference amongst 99% of roasters today, taste being the main factor.  But we will cover that in a later articel specifically on Arabica beans.

They start life as a fruit

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Coffee beans start out “Cherries” (Click to enlarge)

Arabica beans are grown on low (3-6 feet) shrubby plants that bear white blossoms that produce the coffee fruit called “cherries” (about the size and color of cranberries).

These coffee cherries are clustered along the limbs of the plant ( See image).  The cherries are harvested from approximately October through January each year.  Since the coffee cherries do not ripen together, several pickings of the the same plant may be required until all of the cherries have been harvested at the peak of ripenness.

This is the first step in the chain of factors that seperates fair coffee from truly exceptional coffee: only picking the red cherries.  Mixing in under-ripe/ greenish cherries with red cherries will result in bitter coffee no matter how well it is roasted.

In our next article we will talk about the regions beans are grown in and how that affects flavor.

Why not try some of our Micro-Roasted coffees from around the world. These Specialty House Blends are legacy blends in our line up for 14 years. Order 5 bags and shipping is free anywhere in the Continental US too!

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