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The man behind Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc., Alfred Peet, died Aug. 29 at age 87, the company announced Friday.
Mr. Peet, who was born in Alkmaar, Holland, died in Ashland, Ore.
In 1966, he installed a small roaster in the back of a Berkeley shop on Walnut and Vine streets and opened for business. The second Peet’s store — in Menlo Park — was not opened until 1971.
Mr. Peet retired from his business in 1983, but he continued to consult with roastmasters and coffee companies.
Now a public company, Peet’s Coffee and Tea is based in Oakland and operates 152 stores that generated $229 million in sales last year.
Mr. Peet grew up in the coffee business. In Holland, his father owned a small roastery in Alkmaar. After World War II, he became an apprentice for Lipton’s Tea in London, and went on to work in the tea business in Indonesia.
He moved to San Francisco in 1955 and began working for E.A. Johnson & Co., a coffee importing business, according to the company. However, he was unimpressed with the standard of coffee that was being sold in the Bay Area, so he decided to start his own company.
For more information, check this link on Answers.com: http://www.answers.com/topic/peet-s-coffee-tea-inc?cat=biz-fin
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