{"id":153541,"date":"2026-02-06T10:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T10:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/153541\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T10:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T10:27:11","slug":"at-81-the-godfather-of-specialty-coffee-is-still-seeking-perfection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/153541\/","title":{"rendered":"At 81, the ‘godfather of specialty coffee’ is still seeking perfection"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was roasting day at George Howell Coffee<\/a> in Acton. A shiny industrial roasting machine thrummed loudly, while an employee monitored its vital signs on a pair of computer screens nearby. Howell, sporting his trademark blue vest, peered into the machine, where freshly roasted beans spun in slow circles.<\/p>\n

The beans, he explained, came out of the roaster at well over 400 degrees Fahrenheit. The cooling tray was \u201csucking in the air from the environment through the beans, to cool that coffee as quickly as possible,\u201d Howell said. \u201cOtherwise, what happens is the coffee keeps cooking.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Howell, there is nothing worse than an overcooked coffee bean. As the founder of the legendary coffee chain The Coffee Connection, he was an early embracer of light roast coffee \u2014 the fragrant, delicate counterpoint to the dark roasts that once dominated the American market.<\/p>\n

\"GeorgeGeorge Howell at the George Howell Coffee roastery in Acton, Mass. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)\"RoastRoast technician Elyse Barber checks on the beans in a coffee roaster at the George Howell roastery in Acton, Mass. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

The Coffee Connection was an influential player in the Northeast coffee scene in the 1970s and \u201880s, perhaps best known for an iced coffee drink made in a soft serve machine called the Frappuccino. Howell sold his company, and the Frappuccino trademark, to Starbucks in 1994. But he remained at the forefront of coffee culture, helping usher in what is now known as coffee\u2019s \u201cthird wave,\u201d with its emphasis on single origin beans and direct trade with farms. Howell is sometimes called the godfather of specialty coffee.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, light roast is de rigueur among specialty coffee roasters. Howell has simply turned his sights on new innovations. His latest idea is a coffee bag design that signals tasting notes through color: an orange gradient evoking butterscotch, vivid pink-red for cherry, vibrant indigo for blueberry. Standing in the warehouse\u2019s packaging center, he showed me a bag with three slender stripes of yellow, pink and orange \u2014 the tasting notes \u2014 above a big brown square.<\/p>\n

\"BagsBags of coffee in the production area at the George Howell Coffee roastery in Acton, Mass. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aBrown is the color of coffee, and all coffees have a basic flavor, which is coffee itself,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt’s an irreducible flavor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howell led me to a brewing station at the other end of the warehouse. Jennifer Howell \u2014 his daughter and the company\u2019s vice president \u2014 was setting up a row of shot glasses of coffee for me to taste. These included beans from Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Rwanda and Kenya, as well as a natural coffee from Yemen that retails for $80 a bag.<\/p>\n

Jennifer handed me an empty glass and a spoon, and offered me the use of a spittoon in case I started to feel overcaffeinated.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo pour some in, and then you can sip it,\u201d she said, demonstrating how to ladle a spoonful of coffee out of the sample glass and into my own vessel. I delicately slurped the coffee, which was aromatic and pleasantly acidic.<\/p>\n

\u201cDelicious, right?\u201d Jennifer said, before directing me to try the next coffee, which she promised would not be delicious. \u201cJust prepare yourself,\u201d she warned. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

I took a sip and couldn\u2019t help but pull a face. The coffee tasted bitter and stale. \u201cWe call that \u2018age,\u2019\u201d Jennifer said. \u201cThat\u2019s wood, cedar, paper bag.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GeorgeGeorge Howell and his daughter Jennifer Howell, the company’s vice president, discuss coffee samples at a cupping session at the roastery in Acton, Mass. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

The reason for this, she explained, was because the beans had sat around in the warehouse for a year before being roasted. The point of the exercise was to show how deeply the flavor degraded when subjected to this process. Howell explained that his company freezes their beans in order to avoid this apparently widespread crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re the first roasters in the world to freeze green coffee,\u201d he said proudly.<\/p>\n

What were the other specialty shops doing to keep their beans fresh, if not freezing them, I wondered. \u201cThey very often are selling you aged coffee,\u201d Howell responded with an incredulous chuckle.<\/p>\n

At 81, Howell prides himself on remaining vigilant in his pursuit of the best beans, the best roast, the best brew. This week, he marked 50 years in the coffee business with a series of events<\/a> at his cafes. On Saturday, he will appear at Lovestruck Books in Harvard Square for a talk and tasting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sitting in the company\u2019s offices, Howell remembered the first time his father served him coffee, when he was a boy of six or seven.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe takes a spoon, and pours sugared sweetened cream on top so that it lands in the spoon first and then floats,\u201d he recalled, smiling at the memory. \u201cAnd I fell in love with that. That was delicious. But later I tried the black coffee alone and I hated it, because it was so bitter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KyleKyle Miller feeds a bag of just roasted coffee into a bagging machine in the production area at the George Howell Coffee roastery in Acton, Mass. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

That aversion to bitterness is how Howell discovered light roast beans in the pioneering coffee scene of San Francisco, where he and his wife lived in the 1960s and early \u201870s. When they moved to Boston, two children already in tow, Howell was appalled at how bad the coffee was in his adoptive city. An art aficionado, he dreamed of opening a gallery to showcase his particular passion, Wix\u00e1rikan yarn art<\/a>. He also saw an opportunity in the city\u2019s lackluster coffee culture.<\/p>\n

The Coffee Connection opened in Harvard Square in 1975. Along with the displayed artwork, the cafe offered French press coffee and a light roast prepared in the store\u2019s Burlington roastery. Not that Howell had any clue how to roast coffee at first. He recalled \u201cseveral fires\u201d in those early days, as well as at least one ruined roasting machine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember we didn’t turn off the gas when I opened the door to the beans coming pouring out into the cooling tray. And this flash of fire came straight for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Coffee Connection was a runaway success. Howell opened a total of 24 shops throughout the Northeast. In his telling, the chain\u2019s expansion, plus the introduction of private equity, meant that he had to focus more on business than coffee, his true passion. Plus, his six kids would soon be off to college. So when Starbucks offered him over $20 million for the business, he took it.<\/p>\n

\"AA bag of George Howell coffee beans at the George Howell roastery in Acton, Mass. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

Howell\u2019s next big idea was an international coffee competition. The farms that won would be able to auction their coffee for a premium, and roasters would discover new, high-quality beans. The contest, called the Cup of Excellence<\/a>, helped usher in the modern era of specialty coffee, with its focus on sourcing beans directly from single farms.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will credit him with serving the first Frappuccinos, but I think he’s way more proud of establishing the Cup of Excellence,\u201d said Matt Roberts, the founder of the Gloucester coffee company Cometeer.<\/p>\n

He described Howell as a singular figure in the coffee world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe person who criticizes George Howell the most in the industry is George Howell. He just never settles for perfection,\u201d Roberts said. It was common, he added, for people who know Howell to say, \u201cWell, George has been looking for that perfect bean for 35, 45, 50 years now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GeorgeGeorge Howell and his daughter Jennifer Howell discuss coffee samples at a cupping session at the roastery in Acton, Mass. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to see why. After opening the Acton roastery in 2004, Howell opened up his first George Howell Coffee cafe in 2012 and has since expanded to four more locations around Boston. This is despite a more competitive coffee industry and a far more costly business environment in almost every sense. In a strange twist, Howell is now competing with a flourishing local coffee scene that has embraced many of the ideas he once championed. This fact does not seem to daunt him. He expects to retire soon \u2013 but not just yet.<\/p>\n

When I asked Howell how it felt to have had such an impact, he paused. \u201cI hope it sticks,\u201d he said finally.<\/p>\n

Howell worries that climate change will wipe out the best varieties of coffee. He worries that young roasters will move away from small farms and meticulous roasts, lured by the false promise of new tech and industrial methods. But when I asked what drove him, he mentioned neither fear of change nor a sense of needing to shore up his legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see a gorgeous sunset, I’ve got to drag you in to take a look at it,\u201d Howell said. \u201cThat\u2019s what drives me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was roasting day at George Howell Coffee in Acton. A shiny industrial roasting machine thrummed loudly, while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-153541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}