Alfred Peet

Alfred H. Peet (March 10, 1920 – August 29, 2007) was a Dutch-American entrepreneur and the founder of Peet's Coffee & Tea in Berkeley, California, in 1966. He is widely credited with starting the specialty coffee revolution in the United States, introducing custom roasting of top-quality beans at a time when most Americans drank coffee brewed from vacuum-packed cans. Born in Alkmaar, Netherlands, Peet grew up in a family coffee roasting business run by his father before World War II.

Life and career

After the war, he apprenticed with Twinings in London, then worked as a tea taster in the Dutch East Indies and New Zealand before emigrating to San Francisco in 1955, where he entered the coffee importing industry. Dissatisfied with the poor quality of American coffee, which he compared to wartime rations, he opened his first store in Berkeley on April 1, 1966. He initially roasted beans in the back of the shop using small roasters, later upgrading to a 100-pound roaster in a warehouse in Emeryville in the early 1970s, and then a 300-pound roaster in 1976.

Retirement

By then, he had opened additional retail locations in Oakland and Menlo Park and supplied roasted-to-order beans to Bay Area restaurants. Peet mentored several coffee entrepreneurs, including Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker, who used his roasting technique to found Starbucks in 1971. However, Peet later distanced himself from them as they experimented with ultra-dark roasts, remarking that Baldwin never learned from him. He sold his business in 1979 to Sal Bonavita, remaining a mentor for five years.

Influence on coffee industry

In 1984, Baldwin led Starbucks in acquiring Peet's four stores. Peet retired to Ashland, Oregon, where he died in 2007 at age 87. His original Berkeley location, at the corner of Walnut and Vine, became the nucleus of the Gourmet Ghetto, an area that grew around his store and nearby specialty food shops and avant-garde restaurants like Chez Panisse.