tags: [] - coffee/history - coffee/business/roasters aliases: - pioneer specialty roasters - founding specialty roasters - 1970s 1980s specialty created: 2026-05-10 updated: 2026-05-10
Early Specialty Roasters¶
Tags: #coffee/history #coffee/business/roasters Aliases: pioneer specialty roasters, founding specialty roasters, 1970s 1980s specialty Related: Alfred Peet | George Howell | Second Wave Coffee | Specialty Coffee MoC Status: 🌱 Stub
Overview¶
The early specialty roasters of the 1970s and 1980s — including Peet's Coffee (Berkeley, 1966), The Coffee Connection (Boston, 1975), Starbucks (Seattle, 1971 — in its pre-Schultz form), and a handful of other independent retailers — established the first commercial infrastructure for single-origin, freshly roasted specialty coffee in the United States. These businesses created the market that the third wave would later build upon, demonstrating consumer appetite for higher-quality, properly sourced coffee at a time when supermarket canned coffee still dominated the mainstream. Their influence on sourcing standards, roasting philosophy, and retail presentation remains foundational to the specialty industry.
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