The short version
Coffee in Massachusetts goes back to the seventeenth century. Wikipedia's history of the coffeehouse puts the first one in the United States in Boston, in 1676. A century later, after the Boston Tea Party of 1773, large numbers of Americans switched from tea to coffee. Boston merchants built Chase & Sanborn, Quincy gave the world Dunkin', and in 1975 Cambridge got The Coffee Connection, the start of specialty coffee here.
This post walks through that story in order. Every date below comes from Wikipedia or from the dated history pages of the companies named, read on September 27, 2026. Where the sources disagree, we say so rather than pick a number.
A colonial port that drank coffee early
Boston took to coffee early. England's first coffeehouse opened in Oxford in 1650, and a London handbill was advertising coffee by 1652. Boston followed within a generation: 1676 is the year Wikipedia gives for the first American coffeehouse, and it was in this town.
A century later, politics pushed Americans further toward coffee. Wikipedia's history of coffee says that after the Boston Tea Party of 1773, large numbers of Americans switched to coffee.
Four years later, coffee was scarce enough to cause trouble of its own. In July 1777, during the war, a crowd of Boston women went to the warehouse of the merchant Thomas Boylston, who was holding back his coffee, and took it. Abigail Adams wrote about it. Our Boston page tells that story in full, and the New England Historical Society counts it among the food riots of the Revolution.
Boston brands and a Quincy doughnut shop
In the nineteenth century Boston turned coffee into a packaged product. Caleb Chase and James Sanborn founded Chase & Sanborn in Boston in 1864, and the company claimed to be the first to pack and ship roasted coffee in sealed tins. It worked from Broad Street in what is now the Financial District. The brand outlived its founders by a long way: Standard Brands bought it in 1929, and it passed through Nabisco, Nestlé and Sara Lee before an Italian coffee group took it over in 2006.
The neighborhood coffee shop has deep roots here too. Polcari's Coffee has sold coffee on Salem Street in the North End since 1932.
After the Second World War came the chain that most of the country now links with Massachusetts coffee. Bill Rosenberg opened a doughnut and coffee shop called Open Kettle in Quincy in 1948 and renamed it Dunkin' Donuts in late May 1950. Wikipedia notes that the company moved its headquarters to Canton, Massachusetts, in 2004. Dunkin' is a franchise chain, not an independent roaster, so it is not on our list.
Cambridge, 1975: specialty coffee arrives
The modern chapter starts in Harvard Square. George Howell founded The Coffee Connection in Cambridge in 1975 and grew it into a small chain across the Northeast. Wikipedia counts 23 locations; Howell's own company history says 24 stores.
Starbucks bought The Coffee Connection in 1994 for $23 million. Wikipedia notes one side effect: the deal gave Starbucks the rights to the Frappuccino name, a Coffee Connection drink that Starbucks later reformulated. J.P. Licks, the Jamaica Plain ice cream shop, started roasting its own coffee in 1999 because its founder could no longer find a cup he liked once the Coffee Connection was gone.
Howell stayed in coffee. The Specialty Coffee Association of America gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. In 1997 he worked as a quality consultant in Brazil on a United Nations project, work that fed into the Cup of Excellence, the competition and auction for top farm lots. He went back to roasting under his own name in Acton, and his company's first cafe opened in Newtonville. Wikipedia dates The Coffee Connection to 1975 where the company's own history says 1974, and Wikipedia dates George Howell Coffee to 2012, the year that Newtonville cafe opened; the company itself says roasting began in Acton in 2004.
Fair trade and worker ownership, from West Bridgewater to Orange
Massachusetts is also home to the oldest Fair Trade coffee company in the country. Rink Dickinson, Jonathan Rosenthal and Michael Rozyne founded Equal Exchange in 1986, and its first coffee came from Nicaragua, imported in defiance of the US embargo of the time. Wikipedia describes it as the oldest and largest in the United States. It is a worker-owned cooperative with its headquarters in West Bridgewater.
Seven years later, in 1993, Dean Cycon, a lawyer who had worked on environmental and indigenous rights, started Dean's Beans in Orange to sell organic, Fair Trade coffee. He later sold the company to its workers, and it has been fully worker-owned since 2023. The same year, 1993, two college friends, Gregg Charbonneau and Barth Anderson, founded Barrington Coffee in the Berkshires.
The late 1980s and 1990s filled in the rest of the map. Indigo gives 1989 as its founding year in the Pioneer Valley. Rao's began roasting in its Amherst cafe in 1990, and the Shelburne Falls story began that same summer with a drink sold on a ferry dock in Maine. Armeno started in an old Northborough cereal mill in 1994, the year Fogbuster was founded in Greenfield, and Red Barn began in a Hopkinton backyard barn in the winter of 1997. Boston's Best says it has roasted since 1979, which makes it older than all of them.
The cafe decades: 2003 to now
After 2000 the growth moved into neighborhoods. Flat Black opened its first shop in Lower Mills in 2003. Boston Common Coffee was founded in 2004. Jaho opened as a single Salem cafe in 2005, the same year Brew'd Awakening opened in Lowell; Brew'd Awakening started roasting its own beans a decade later, in 2015. Esselon opened in Hadley in June 2006.
Barista culture took hold next. Barismo, founded in 2008, held the first barista jam in the Boston area in 2009, at a cafe in Newton, and organized the Northeast regional barista competition in Somerville in 2010. Pavement opened in 2009. Speedwell was founded in Plymouth in 2008, and Snowy Owl opened on Cape Cod in 2015.
The newest roasters keep coming. Broadsheet was founded in Cambridge in 2017. Andina opened its Saxonville Mills cafe and roastery in Framingham in 2018. Leyden Street Coffee in Plymouth dates to 2019. Aero opened in Northborough in June 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. Tiny Arms set up in Lowell in 2021 and began roasting on a Loring in January 2022. Ground Floor in New Bedford, founded in 2019, opened its doors in June 2023, and Alta opened in Arlington in September 2024.
What that history means for your next bag
The line from the 1676 coffeehouse to a roaster in Sandwich or Lee is a line of small businesses. Dean's Beans and Equal Exchange are owned by their workers, and Barrington's two founders still roast the day's coffee themselves. When you buy from them, the money pays roasters, bakers and baristas in towns like Orange, Plymouth and Salem, and the coffee comes a short way from the roaster to your cup. That is why Bay State Coffee Club buys only from roasters in this state. The longer case is on why Massachusetts roasters matter.
If you want to taste the modern end of this story, the Massachusetts roasters we list each have a page with their history, and Bay State Coffee Club sends a bag from a different independent Massachusetts roaster in every box, with the first bag free: you pay $7.99 shipping.
Sources
- Wikipedia, Coffeehouse: the first US coffeehouse, Boston, 1676.
- Wikipedia, History of coffee: Oxford 1650, London 1652, the switch to coffee after the Boston Tea Party of 1773.
- Wikipedia, Chase & Sanborn Coffee: founding in Boston, sealed tins, later owners.
- Wikipedia, Dunkin' Donuts: Open Kettle in Quincy, the 1950 name change, the Canton headquarters.
- Wikipedia, George Howell (entrepreneur): The Coffee Connection, the Starbucks sale, the Frappuccino name, the 1996 award and the Brazil project.
- Wikipedia, Equal Exchange: founders, founding year, headquarters.
- The Boston Coffee Party: New England Historical Society, The Female Food Riots of the American Revolution.
- Founding dates for Polcari's, J.P. Licks, Flat Black, Boston Common Coffee, Pavement, Barismo, Brew'd Awakening, Rao's, Fogbuster, Boston's Best, Andina, Leyden Street, Tiny Arms, Ground Floor and Alta: from our city research, read September 27, 2026.
- Roasters we list: our roaster profiles, written from each roaster's public pages and checked September 27, 2026.
By Joe McRose, Bay State Coffee Club. Updated .