Legendary Dutch coffee businessman Alfred Peet, who founded Peet's Coffee & Tea and served as an advisor to Starbucks' early years, died Wednesday, Aug 27, at his home in Ashland, Ore. at age 87.

After retiring from the coffee business, Peet moved to Oregon in 2001, where he lived ever since.

Alfred Peet, who was born in Alkmaar, Netherlands, had an early contact with the coffee business as his father ran a small coffee roastery before World War II. Alfred Peet ended up working as a tea taster in the Dutch East Indies and New Zealand before immigrating to San Francisco in 1955. His first long-term job in the United States was in the coffee importing industry.

However, the young man remarked the poor quality of coffee in the United States, and immediately saw his opportunity. Peet went on and opened his own coffee store in Berkeley, California in 1966, an outlet which still exists today on the corner of Walnut and Vine in Berkeley, in the vicinity of the University of California Berkeley. He managed to set new standards for coffee quality and aroma, finding exquisite beans from all over the world and taking great care in roasting them. Peet's trademark coffees are darker than average. Peet's now operates 150 retail locations within the US, mostly in California.

The coffee giant Starbucks started off by buying coffee for its shops from Peet's.

"Alfred knew about quality coffee, and it was really frustrating to him that nobody was roasting quality coffee," said Jim Reynolds, the 'roastmaster emeritus' for Peet's Coffee and Tea. "He felt he could introduce Americans to quality coffee. Nobody understood that this was the beginning of a coffee revolution."