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The Second Wave of Coffee

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The characteristics that epitomize specialty coffee emerged in the United States out of the San Francisco Bay Area. Alfred Peet, a Dutch immigrant who favored European-style coffee, opened a Peet’s Coffee & Tea in Berkeley in 1966. Peet sold coffee beans that were roasted darker – and brewed stronger – than the thinner-bodied coffee popularized earlier in the 20th century. This represented the shift away from “commodity coffee” to recognizing coffee as an artisanal global product that could be prepared well at home.

The term “specialty coffee,” however, is attributed to Erna Knutsen in the mid-1970s, a San Francisco-based importer of low-batch quality coffee who used the term to market the product to independent roasters. 

A brown wheel illustrating different color-coded regions where coffee grows in and their characteristics.
Peet’s Coffees Flavor Wheel

George Howell founded Coffee Connection in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1975 as part of the specialty coffee movement. He envisioned his coffee shops as “a hearth, a place where people come together.” The specialty roaster also sold beans through the bakery chain, Au Bon Pain. Coffee Connection invented the formula for the original Frappuccino and sold the naming rights to Starbucks, which acquired the company in 1994. 

A brown coffee bag with faintly printed coffee berries in the background and the words “Coffee Connection®” over colored coffee berries floating above the words “at Au Bon Pain the French bakery cafe” with an empty “Sell by date” section at the bottom.
Coffee Connection bag for roasted beans sold at Au Bon Pain stores, ca. 1990s
Russ Kramer Papers, D-817

Starbucks

The “second wave” of coffee included a resurgence of home grinding and brewing. In January 1970, Starbucks co-founder Jerry Baldwin received a gift of a Salton coffee grinder from his mother, several months before the idea of the Starbucks coffee shop germinated. 

Starbucks was founded in 1971 by friends Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl. The trio of “accidental entrepreneurs” were inspired by European coffee from their travels, and after meeting Alfred Peet, who mentored them about coffee and roasting, they opened the first Starbucks store at 2000 Western Avenue on the edge of Pike Place Market in Seattle. Starbucks promised customers “the best cup of coffee in the city and the world.” In addition to coffee beans – and later, brewed coffee – Starbucks sold roasted beans, tea, spices, chocolate, and a variety of home grinders.

An old city of Seattle business license issued in 1971 to “Starbuck’s Coffee Co.”.
Original business license for Starbucks at 2000 Western Avenue. Jerry Baldwin Papers, D-816
An old photograph of a blond woman behind a wooden counter pouring coffee beans from one bag to another.
An old photograph of an old yellow-painted Starbucks store with a orange-brown sign on the corner of a block with several cars outside.

An old photograph of people, one in front of a wooden counter and two behind, in a brick building with low hanging lights and coffee bags on wooden shelves on the walls.

Photographs from original Starbucks at 2000 Western Avenue, circa 1971.
Jerry Baldwin Papers, D-816

An old photograph of a sideways-facing blue car sitting in front of a brown paneled wall on concrete.
The first delivery vehicle for Starbucks – used to haul construction materials and, later, coffee beans for delivery was a 1955 Chevrolet with a busted headlight. Jerry Baldwin bought the Chevy for for $125 and used a block of wood to point the headlight.  Jerry Baldwin Papers, D-816
A newspaper clipping saying “Starbucks Announces the End of Stale Coffee” with the words “Roaster-Fresh Coffee in the New FlavorLock Bag” beneath it.
“Starbucks Announces the End of Stale Coffee,” ca. 1983.
Jerry Baldwin Papers, D-816
A letter to Jerry Baldwin about how they named their baby Starbuck.
Letter from Mr. Milton Simon to Mr. Jerry Baldwin, 23 June 1977
Jerry Baldwin Papers, D-816
The First Wave of Coffee Technology and Coffee