George Howell Coffee

George Howell opened Boston's The Coffee Connection in 1974 and built it into the East Coast's defining specialty café chain before selling to Starbucks in 1994 — the Frappuccino, invented on his watch, went along in the deal. In 1999 he co-founded Cup of Excellence, the auction program that rewired how the world's best lots are found and priced, and in 2004 he returned to roasting with Terroir Coffee, since renamed George Howell Coffee. The name change didn't soften the thesis: single farms treated like wine estates, light roasts decades before they were fashionable, and green coffee frozen at peak so benchmark lots — Kenya's Mamuto, Costa Rica's La Minita — pour in top form years past harvest. Many coffees ship as separate light and medium roast versions; both are tracked here.