Peet’s Founder Brewed City’s First ‘European-Style’ Coffee

Alfred Peet, who founded Peet’s Coffee & Tea in Berkeley, died last Wednesday at the age of 87 at his Oregon home, leaving behind a lasting impact on the gourmet coffee market.

Born in Holland in 1920 as the son of a Dutch coffee roaster, Peet introduced the European art of brewing specialty coffee to the United States.

His first store opened in 1966 on Walnut and Vine streets in North Berkeley and was an early feature of what came to be known as the gourmet ghetto. Chez Panisse and the Cheese Board Collective followed several years later.

What made Peet’s coffee different from what most Americans were drinking at the time was a technique

emphasizing the selection of choice beans and a thorough roasting process, said Jim Reynolds, roastmaster emeritus at Peet’s.

Reynolds was personally mentored by Peet in the ways of specialty coffee.

“Those big brands, like Folgers and others, basically buy their coffee by price,” he said. “They’re just looking for the lowest possible price that will be acceptable to their customers, so it’s completely different from Peet’s, which buys the best quality coffee.”

Peet traveled in Amsterdam and Hamburg and brought back the technique of dark-roasting coffee beans. Roasting the beans for a long time is a more expensive procedure that causes the beans to lose weight and creates a more flavorful product.

After 11 years of working for the coffee importing business E.A. Johnson & Co. in San Francisco, Peet saw a chance to make Berkeley the home of specialty coffee.

Victor Mancebo, a UC Berkeley graduate student in 1967 and current Seattle resident, was “immediately hooked” after drinking his first cup.

After he tasted Peet’s gourmet coffee, Mancebo bought a bag of beans from the store in hopes of re-creating the flavor at his home.

Unable to achieve the same taste, he went back to the store, where Peet shared his expertise. Years later, Peet recognized Mancebo at his Menlo Park store and the two became friends.

“I really got to know the man, he was fascinating. He was gentle but very precise and demanding,” Mancebo said. “Damn, he made good coffee.”

The word spread. More stores opened in the Bay Area in the 1970’s, and Peet was also gaining recognition from coffee companies outside California.

“One interesting thing about Mr. Peet was that he was a fairly conservative European, and I think it was a little bit of a challenge for him to have a store in Berkeley in the ’60s that appealed to more liberal types,” Reynolds said. “But I think he recognized Berkeley because of the cosmopolitan students and faculty who traveled a lot and would appreciate the European quality of coffee that it was his intention to bring.”

In addition to changing the industry with his company, Peet’s generosity is credited with getting global powerhouse Starbucks Coffee off the ground.

Peet trained Starbucks founders Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker in the process of dark-roasting that made his coffee so well-liked. Once Starbucks opened its first store in Seattle in 1971, Peet also roasted the coffee beans that Starbucks sold.

“He really appreciated people who were truly interested in his business and the quality that he was selling,” Reynolds said. “It’s really remarkable for someone to help a competitor.”

Although Peet sold his company in 1979, he continued working as the buyer until 1983. When the company went public in 2001 and started operating 151 stores nationwide, Peet was critical of its growth.

“I think he probably felt some allegiance to customers, he wanted to make sure that we didn’t let them down,” Reynolds said.

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