As a die-hard coffee drinker, this piece of news caught my attention this week: the founder of Peet's Coffee, Mr. Alfred Peet, died this week at the age of 87 in his Oregon home.
You may know Peet's as the "other" coffee place, but you may not know that the founders of Starbucks learned coffee roasting from Mr. Peet, and in fact the first Starbuck's in Pike Place Market sold coffee roasted by Peet's. Alfred Peet imported gourmet coffee roasting techniques from his home country of Holland, opened his first store in Berkeley in 1966, and has been pioneering the art of coffee-drinking in this country since.
And as a typical San Franciscan- or Californian, for that matter- you're often confronted by the question: Starbucks or Peet's?
Native Californians will often answer you Peet's, hands down, purely for their superior quality, the non frou-frou friendly neighborhood atmosphere, and most of all their genuine love of coffee.
Me, being a Seattle transplant, can't deny that I have soft spot for Starbucks (even though I do call them the Evil Empire). Just imagine... you're walking alone in a drizzle on a dreary day in Seattle (which is most days of the year), it's 3:30 in the afternoon but the sky is already dark, and you feel miserably cold and weary. Then, the warm glow from a Starbucks draws you in, with soothing music playing, people in good moods, offering you a cup of piping hot joe, which you can enjoy upon retiring to one of those big fluffy armchairs beside a fireplace...
You get the picture. Peet's sell coffee, Starbuck's sell comfort.
So what do I drink? Simple- a large half-decaf, sugar-free vanilla americano, with room please- from Peet's, of course. I'll save Starbucks for when I'm feeling depressed or when there isn't a Peet's in a 5-mile radius.
And in the meantime, I think you should follow your heart. It doesn't hurt to trust your canine endorser either (Bryson states that he has no conflict of interest to disclose).
(P.S. Check out the blog at Peet's to read more about Alfred Peet or leave a note)
