[Deathwatch] Alfred Peet, coffee pioneer, 87

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Coffee pioneer Alfred Peet dies
George Raine

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Store manager Fauchon Hong grinds coffee near a photo of ... The first
Peet's store opened in Berkeley in 1966, introd... Freshly roasted
beans became a hallmark of Peet's product...

Alfred Peet, a pioneer in specialty coffee who shared the stage with
the Bay Area culinary stars the shaped the region's food-centric
reputation, died Wednesday at his home in Ashland, Ore. He was 87.

The company he founded, Peet's Coffee & Tea Inc., has more than 150
establishments, all but 22 in California, but the first opened at
Walnut and Vine streets in Berkeley in 1966, taking its place in what
would become the Gourmet Ghetto.

With his emphasis on specialty coffees and unique brewing techniques,
Peet, the son of a Dutch roaster, put specialty coffee on the map - and
in the process influenced the founders of Starbucks.

"Up until the time he started, in 1966, basic American coffee was
swill," said Jim Reynolds, roastmaster emeritus at Peet's. "His father
had been a small coffee roaster in Holland before World War II, he was
aware of good quality coffee, but nobody in the States was buying it,"
Reynolds said. "He realized Berkeley was a place where good food and
good quality coffee would work."

It was the time that Chez Panisse and other fine food establishments
opened and Peet introduced quality coffee that helped change the
coffee-buying habits of many people.

"I like to think that he taught America how to drink dark-roasted
coffee," said Narsai David, the food and wine editor of KCBS in San
Francisco, who, when he opened his Narsai's Restaurant on Colusa Circle
in 1972, was Peet's first commercial account.

David said Peet was not crystal clear on the commercial account concept
- he preferred the retail business, in which people gave him cash for
coffee, and there were times Peet was on the phone asking for payment
before his statement had arrived at David's office - but the
restaurateur let it pass. "He was really rigid, but his coffee was so
good we did not mind," said David.

After the Walnut and Vine shop, there came a store in Menlo Park
(1971), another on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland (1978) and a second in
Berkeley across the street from the Claremont Hotel (1980).

In 1971, the first Starbucks store opened in Seattle's Pike Place
Market, with coffee roasted by Peet's. The company's co-founders, Jerry
Baldwin and Gordon Bowker, learned about roasting from Peet.

Peet sold his business in 1979 but stayed on as a coffee buyer until
1983. In 1984, Starbucks co-owner Baldwin and Reynolds, the
roastmaster, with a group of investors bought Peet's four Bay Area
locations. In 1987, Baldwin and Peet's owners sold the Starbucks chain
to focus on Peet's, and Baldwin and Howard Schultz, Starbucks' new
owner, entered into a no-compete agreement in the Bay Area. In 2001,
Peet's became a public company.

Alfred Peet was born in Alkmaar, Holland, on March 10, 1920. He helped
his father by cleaning his coffee-roasting machinery and doing other
odd jobs. When Germany invaded the Netherlands, he was pressed into
working for the Third Reich in Frankfurt. When the war ended, Peet
joined Lipton, the tea company, and for a time worked in the tea
business in the then-Dutch colony of Indonesia.

He immigrated to San Francisco in 1955 and took a job with coffee
importer E.A. Johnson & Co. He favored high-altitude coffee from Costa
Rica, Guatemala and East Africa that his father used to buy, and
although there was no market for it in the area, he decided to create
one.

"He went to a great deal of trouble to find only the best beans," said
David. "He knew his business like nobody I ever met."

Importantly, David added, Peet introduced customers to coffee they
didn't know existed.

"We would drink it and it put us in a new realm. It had complexity and
richness - that's the best way to describe it," said David.

Along the way, Peet influenced younger roasters like James Freeman,
owner of Blue Bottle Coffee in Oakland. "He really opened the door for
the specialty-coffee industry," said Freeman, who said Peet made a
radical departure from the roasting style of the day, with smaller
batches, darker roasts and higher-quality coffee.

"He really showed that people in America are willing to spend a little
bit more money to get a little bit better when it comes to coffee,"
said Freeman.

Peet is survived by a daughter and two grandchildren, but Reynolds,
speaking for the family, said they are private people and did not want
to be identified. Reynolds said he and others will plan a memorial
service.

Many thanks to Deathwatch Central for posting this obituary