Alfred H. Peet (March 10, 1920 – August 29, 2007) was a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

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entrepreneur and the founder of

Peet's Coffee & Tea Peet's Coffee is a San Francisco Bay Area-based specialty coffee roaster and retailer owned by JAB Holding Company via JDE Peet's. Founded in 1966 by Alfred Peet in Berkeley, California, Peet's introduced the United States to its darker roasted ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

, in 1966. Peet is widely credited with starting the specialty coffee revolution in the US. Among coffee historians, Peet has been called "the Dutchman who taught America how to drink coffee." Peet taught his style of roasting beans to

Jerry Baldwin Gerald Baldwin is an American businessman. He and two other entrepreneurs, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl, founded Starbucks in Seattle, in 1971. He is a Sonoma Valley vintner, and co-founder of J. Baldwin Wines. Career Jerry Baldwin learned the ...

Zev Siegl Zev Siegl (December 28, 1942) is an American keynote speaker and presenter. He co-founded Starbucks, with Gordon Bowker and Jerry Baldwin, in 1971, and served as a director of the company during its first decade. Early life Zev Siegl was born ...

and

Gordon Bowker Gordon Bowker is an American entrepreneur. He began as a writer and went on to co-found Starbucks with Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegl. He was later a co-owner of Peet's Coffee & Tea and Redhook Ale Brewery. Biography Following the death of his ...

, who, with his blessing, took the technique to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

and founded Starbucks in 1971. Peet later distanced himself, however, from the Starbucks trio as they experimented with ultra-dark roasts. "Baldwin never learned anything from me," Peet was later quoted as saying.

Life and career

Peet was born in Alkmaar, The

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, where his father ran a small coffee roasting establishment, prior to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Following the war; Peet left London, where he had apprenticed with

Twinings Twinings () is a British marketer of tea and other beverages, including coffee, hot chocolate and malt drinks, based in Andover, Hampshire. The brand is owned by Associated British Foods. It holds the world's oldest continually used company log ...

coffee and tea company, to work as a tea taster in the Dutch East Indies and

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, prior to

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San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, in 1955, where he worked in the coffee importing industry. Dismayed with the poor quality of coffee in the United States, Peet opened a coffee store in Berkeley, California, on 1 April 1966. He compared the low quality coffee in the United States to World War II "

rationed Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...

" coffee. (in Dutch). Although often encouraged to expand the business, he remained stalwart in keeping the original location at Walnut and Vine, zealously guarding the quality of the coffee bearing his name. After several years of roasting beans in the back of the store using one-, and then five-pound, roasters, in the early 1970s, he acquired a warehouse in the adjacent town of Emeryville, in which he installed a 100-pound roaster, followed by a 300-pound roaster, in 1976. By that time, Peet had two additional retail stores: one on Piedmont in Oakland, and one on University in Palo Alto. He then also sold roasted-to-order, 20 to 50 pound bags of beans to restaurants throughout the Bay Area.

Retirement

Peet sold his business, in 1979, to Sal Bonavita, for whom he remained a mentor for the next five years. Bonavita soon opened new stores in Oakland,

Mill Valley Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States, located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ...

and Menlo Park. After retiring from the coffee business, Peet moved in 2001 to

Ashland, Oregon Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population was 21,360 at the 2020 ...

, where he died on August 29, 2007, at age 87. In 1984,

led Starbucks in acquiring Peet's four locations from Bonavita.

Influence on coffee industry

Peet introduced custom

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. Seeds of ...

roasting of top quality beans to the United States, at a time when Americans were typically drinking coffee brewed from beans freeze-dried in a can. The origin of Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto was Peet's first

Peet's Coffee Peet's Coffee is a San Francisco Bay Area-based specialty coffee roaster and retailer owned by JAB Holding Company via JDE Peet's. Founded in 1966 by Alfred Peet in Berkeley, California, Peet's introduced the United States to its darker roasted ...

location, opened in 1966, at the corner of Walnut and Vine; the area grew around Peet's and adjacent specialty food, health food, and other ''avant-garde'' restaurants that sprung up, including ''

Chez Panisse Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California, restaurant, known as one of the originators of the style of cooking known as California cuisine, and the farm-to-table movement. The restaurant emphasizes ingredients rather than technique and has develo ...

''. While Peet was known to have a "severe demeanor", he also had a genuine willingness to instruct coffee entrepreneurs in the art of bean roasting. Starbucks co-founder

has remembered Peet as a "very generous" mentor. And Baldwin was one of many coffee entrepreneurs that Peet mentored, including Jamie Anderson (Anderson's Coffee, Austin, Texas), David Dessinger (Pegasus Coffee, Bainbridge Island, Washington), Arnold Spinelli (Spinelli Coffee Company, San Francisco, California), Susan O'Hori (O'Hori's Coffee Roasters, Santa Fe, New Mexico) and Leigh McDonald (founder of Coffee Connection in Amsterdam). Other coffee entrepreneurs got into the business simply because they were inspired by Alfred Peet and their experience tasting his coffee at his first Berkeley store. George Howell is a notable example, who founded The Coffee Connection in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Howell is widely credited as having been the inventor of the Frappuccino. Starbucks later acquired his business.

Media

An interview with Alfred Peet is included in the documentary ''Coffee Culture USA'' by Kenneth van Schooten and Julie Ragusa, released in 2008. Peet's sister, then aged 100, was interviewed by Dutch editor and author Jasper Houtman, for ''The Coffee Visionary: The Life & Legacy of Alfred Peet'', published in 2018.

References

External links