Coffee maker Albert Peet dies

BERKELEY, Calif., Aug. 31 (UPI) -- Albert Peet, founder of Peet's Coffee & Tea who opened his first Berkeley, Calif., store 41 years ago, has died at age 87, the company said Friday.

Peet died Wednesday at his Ashland, Ore., home, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Peet opened his first store in 1966, followed by outlets in Menlo Park (1971), Piedmont Avenue in Oakland (1978) and another Berkeley store across from the Claremont Hotel in 1980. He retired in 1983.

A native of Alkmaar, Holland, he did odd jobs at his father's coffee roastery in Alkmaar before World War II. After the war, Peet apprenticed at Lipton's Tea in London, then worked in the tea business in Indonesia before migrating to San Francisco in 1955 and joining the coffee importer E.A. Johnson & Co.

He opened his first Peet's at Walnut and Vine streets in Berkeley, installing a small roaster in the shop's back room.