Alfred Peet

Infobox Person
name = Alfred Peet

---

caption =
birth_date = birth date|1920|3|10
birth_place = Alkmaar, Netherlands
death_date = death date and age|2007|8|29|1920|3|20
death_place = Ashland, Oregon, U.S.
occupation = Founder, Peet's Coffee & Tea

Alfred H. Peet (March 10, 1920 – August 29, 2007) was a Dutch-American entrepreneur and the founder of Peet's Coffee & Tea. He is most famous for introducing custom coffee roasting to the United States.

Biography

Early life

Peet was born in Alkmaar, Netherlands, where his father ran a small coffee roastery before World War II.cite web | url=http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=6166 | title=Coffee pioneer Peet dies | date=31August 2007 | accessdate=2007-08-31 | work=Central Valley Business Times] After the war, Peet left London, where he had apprenticed with a coffee and tea company, and worked as a tea taster in the Dutch East Indies and New Zealand before immigrating to San Francisco in 1955, where he worked in the coffee importing industry.cite news | url=http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=4524 | title=The passing of Al Peet—the founder of Peet's Coffee | date=August 31 2007 | accessdate=2007-08-31 | last=Murphy | first=Pat | work=San Francisco Sentinel] cite news | url=http://archive.mailtribune.com/archive/2003/0601/local/stories/03local.htm | title=Peet now calls Medford his home | date=2003-06-01 | last=Stiles | first=Greg | work=Mail-Tribune | accessdate=2007-08-31]

Coffee roaster

After becoming dismayed at the poor quality of coffee in the United States, he opened his own coffee store in Berkeley, California, in 1966, and soon opened new stores in Oakland, Mill Valley and Menlo Park.

Peet taught his style of roasting beans to Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker, who took the technique to Seattle and founded Starbucks in 1971. Peet is widely credited withweasel-inline starting the specialty coffee revolution in the US. Among coffee historians, Peet is labeled as "the Dutchman who taught America how to drink coffee." [cite news | author= | title=Nederlander leerde Amerika koffie drinken | url=http://www.nos.nl/nosjournaal/artikelen/2007/9/4/040907_alfred_peet.html | work=Nederlandse Omroep Stichting | date=4 Sept 2007 | accessdate=2007-09-04]

Peet sold the business in 1979, but remained a coffee buyer until 1983. [cite news | work=San Francisco Chronicle | title=Coffee pioneer Alfred Peet dies | author=George Raine | date=2007-09-01 | url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/01/BUEIRTFAV.DTL | accessdate=2007-09-01]

An interview with Alfred Peet is included in the documentary "Coffee Culture USA" released in 2008.

Retirement

After retiring from the coffee business, Peet moved in 2001 to Ashland, Oregon, where he died in August of 2007.cite news | url=http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2007/08/founder_of_peets_coffee_dies_a.html | title=Founder of Peet's Coffee dies at home in Ashland | work=The Oregonian | date=2007-08-31 |accessdate=2007-08-31]

References

External links

* [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/03/us/03peet.html?ex=1346472000&en=48e8acf8a581e13d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss New York Times Obituary]