Our Story

Like most companies, our founding story starts with an entrepreneur and a vision. And while the story of our past is important to us, what’s more important is the direction of our future. You see, we believe that coffee has a unique power to create connections between people. Maybe it’s the nature of how we drink it or the people we choose to enjoy it with, but coffee has a way of bringing people together. And at O.Henry’s, we want to focus everything we do on creating an experience that allows you to connect with and enjoy the company of others, whether it’s the warmth of our stores, the smiles of our people, or the comfort of our conecuh biscuits. We will provide the coffee. We simply want you – all of you – to be our company.

Meet our Roaster:

The team at O.Henry’s approach to everything starts with stewardship – and remembering all of the love, sweat, and intentionality that goes into getting every bean from seed to sack to ship to store.

The most strenuous piece of bringing coffee to our stores is what happens before we even receive it. Whenever we unbag it, roast it, brew it, or serve it, we should be thinking of the farmers across the world who work endlessly to bring us the premium coffee beans that we too often take for granted.

We make every effort to respect the agricultural product that we have received, and to honor its quality by understanding each unique roast preference and adjusting our process to match the coffee, not vice versa.

Our Coffee

Our Approach

At O.Henry’s we care about every cup of coffee we make and are dedicated to creating consistent, balanced, and flavorful coffee beans in every batch that we roast, so that you can expect the same delicious drink you have come to know and love every visit.

And that commitment to quality starts way before you meet a smiling barista in our store. It starts with the farmers we trust. Carefully grown and sustainably farmed, O.Henry’s is dedicated to providing high quality and consistent coffee beans from around the world that we roast by hand in-house.

Roast Varieties

Light roast coffee is just as the name suggests, roasted less. Light roasts are typically distinguished by floral, fruity, herbal, and tea-like notes, with more acidity than other roasting profiles. Most light roast coffees are roasted just past the first crack and can be recognized by their paler complexions.

The most commonly preferred variety, medium roasts can encompass a broad range of flavor profiles and growing regions. They tend to be more developed and less acidic than a light roast, but medium roasts are also sweeter and less earthy than a dark roast.

Popularized in the 1990s, dark roasts are roasts that are often smoky and have a heavy body. To get this flavor profile, the beans are roasted to the second crack, where the oils and gases inside the beans expand at greater temperatures. Because of this, dark roasts take on more flavors of the roasting process, while the origin characteristics of the coffee are diminished.

O.Henry’s is proud to be one of the few coffee shops in Birmingham serving flavored coffee - which we’ve been doing for 30 years. All of our flavors start with our smooth yet flexible Brazilian beans, allowing you to taste the intended flavors without losing the quality and freshness of the rich medium roast.

Decaf coffee fell out of vogue for several years – largely because of the unnatural ways it was decaffeinated. But at O.Henry’s we strictly use decaffeinated beans that have been screened through the Swiss water process (SWP). No chemicals used, only water. These are sensitive beans that require a gentler roasting process, but the result is 99.9% caffeine free, with all the flavors you would expect in a premium coffee.