The Coffee Visionary: The Life and Legacy of Alfred Peet

"The coffee tells my story." --Alfred Peet

At a time when most Americans drank coffee percolated from canned grounds, the son of a coffee roaster from a small town in the Netherlands laid the foundation for specialty coffee in the United States. When Alfred Peet opened Peet's Coffee, Tea & Spices in Berkeley, California, in 1966, and started selling small batches of on-site, hand-roasted coffee beans, the renowned roastmaster had no way of knowing that he was brewing a coffee revolution and defining the coffee culture we know and love today.


About the Author
Jasper Houtman is an editor for the Dutch financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad and has twenty-five years experience in writing for magazines and newspapers in the Netherlands. Traveling through Guatemala and Honduras in 2004, he became interested in coffee, which led to a fascination for the story of Alfred Peet, who is relatively unknown in his motherland, the Netherlands.