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FIORELLOEst. 1931

Fiorello Coffee Roasting Co. · Boston · Est. 1931

Eight coffees, one cast-iron drum, and a fire we have not let go out.

The North End, 1931

He learned to roast in Trieste.

A man in a worn denim apron holding a small white cup of coffee in both hands, framed from the chest down, the poured rosetta looking straight up out of the cup.
— O. Fiorello at the counter, 1948. Nathan Dumlao

Ottavio Fiorello learned to roast in Trieste, in a shop off the Piazza Grande where the drum was turned by hand and the roaster judged a batch by the sound the beans made as they cooled. He arrived in Boston in the spring of 1929 with a duffel, a set of copper scoops, and no English. For two years he ground coffee for other men.

In 1931 he took the lease on a narrow brick storefront on Prince Street, installed a cast-iron drum that had come over in the hold of a freighter, and lit it on a Tuesday morning in November. The fire has been relit every working morning since — through rationing, through two floods, through the winter the street was closed for eleven weeks.

Three generations later the drum still turns, and the beans still tell us when they are done.

“We do not roast to a colour. We roast to a sound.”

— Ottavio Fiorello, 1948

Eight coffees, roasted weekly

Ask for it black the first time.

Eighteen pounds, one drum

Eleven minutes, charge to drop.

  1. 00:00Charge

    Eighteen pounds of green go into the drum at 214 °C. The needle drops the moment they land, and the rest of the roast is climbing back out of that hole.

  2. 04:30Yellowing

    The green goes to straw and the room starts to smell like bread. Renata pulls the trier every half minute and reads the colour against the window.

  3. 08:10First crack

    A sound like rain on a tin roof, and from here the batch moves faster than you do. The gas comes down; the drum has enough heat in its walls to finish the job.

  4. 11:00Drop

    The hatch swings and eighteen pounds go out into the cooling tray, raked by hand until the arm complains. Eleven minutes, and never twelve.

“Everything in this room is old except the coffee.”

— Renata Fiorello, third-generation roaster

1931–1974, Prince Street

Most of these were in a biscuit tin.

  • Steam curling off a brown ceramic cup into low golden window light.
    14A
  • Jute sacks stacked against a wooden wall, stencilled with a lot number and the words raw arabica coffee beans.
    15
  • Two hands levelling a tamper into a portafilter on a dark counter, one steadying the handle.
    15A
  • Steam billowing across the group heads of an espresso machine, a barista's hand just visible behind it.
    16
  • Black and white photograph of a weathered clapboard storefront, hand-painted lettering running along the fascia under a row of bare bulbs.
    16A
  • A dark cup of coffee with a poured rosetta on a scratched metal counter, loose beans scattered around it.
    17
  • Black and white photograph of a dark timber shopfront, its tall windows stacked with framed prints and books under two bare hanging bulbs.
    17A
  • A pair of hands cradling a loaded portafilter in a dim room, the person in a heavy dark green coat.
    18
  • An old shop display case with a painted orange frame and a lit glass front, hand-lettered signs pinned on the brick above it.
    18A

— First pour, half past six. tabitha turner

Prince Street

Come in. The drum is warm.

214 Prince Street
North End, Boston, MA 02113

Mon to Sat · 06:30 — 16:00

Opening hours at 214 Prince Street. Today’s row is marked.
Monday06:30 — 16:00
Tuesday06:30 — 16:00
Wednesday06:30 — 16:00
Thursday06:30 — 16:00
Friday06:30 — 16:00
Saturday06:30 — 16:00
SundayClosed
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A shop's white-framed bay window jutting out over a red brick plinth on a wet cobbled street at dusk, the room inside lit warm and a chalkboard propped against the wall beside it.
— The window, November. T