Today I have the good fortune to interview Marissa Reddy, Peet’s core training leader of the Boston and Chicago district. You may be familiar with Peet’s. It’s a leading coffee and tea emporium based out of Emeryville, CA, with locations in Boston, Chicago, Colorado, Seattle, Portland, and California. And it’s tasty.
As I’ve discussed in previous posts, while green tea can be a great choice for weight loss, caffeine itself creates a blood sugar spike by forcing the adrenals to release cortisol. So despite popular belief, if you are interested in slimming down, three lattes per day is not your best bet. However, if you do choose to indulge, be certain to select a well-made brew. Here Marissa discusses Peet’s dedication to quality.
STEPHANIE: What exactly does a core training leader do?
MARISSA: Well, good question. Peet’s has never advertised….no print, media, whatsoever. Mr. Peet believed that if you educated your customer, they would come back, and tell their friends. So knowledge is a huge piece of being a Peet’s employee. My job is to be sure that the people behind the counter know what it is they’re selling and understand all of the effort behind it, from the tea estate to the coffee farm to the buyers to the roasters.
STEPHANIE: Marissa, what is is about Peet’s that makes it so much better than all of the other chain coffee stores?
MARISSA: When Alfred Peet first started the company in 1966, he founded it based on three product tenents, which are still strictly adhered to. The first one is selection – how we choose what we sell. Peet’s practices long-term direct buying, so our average coffee contract with a grower is 5-7 years. We’ve been buying from a lot of the same people for the last 30 years. We buy directly from growers whenever possible as opposed to using middle men. This way we know exactly what we’re getting, and we’re aware of every step the coffee or tea has been through. It also gives us a lot of freedom to dialogue with growers about their methods.
We have two coffee buyers and one tea buyer who are solely responsible for buying all of our products. Many other companies use boards or committees. Our method allows us to be incredibly selective.
STEPHANIE: Wow, what a job that would be! How does one get hired as the sole tea buyer for Peet’s?
MARISSA: In this case, he started as a regular retail salesperson, tasted a lot, and slowly developed a reputation as someone with a very good palate and attention to detail. He developed a lot of the training we use – lesson plans, product knowledge. Then he was asked to take over the tea department. He’s been with Peet’s about 25 years.
STEPHANIE: You mentioned two other tenets. What are they?
MARISSA: The second one is artisanship. This is probably my favorite because it is the area that Peet’s has most control over. In terms of coffee, it’s the belief that coffee needs to be roasted by hand in very small batches and it is a craft. To become a master roaster for Peet’s takes ten years of apprenticeship so it’s very much treated as a skill you have to master. There are only eight roasters right now, I believe. It’s a small group responsible for roasting a whole lot of coffee.
The third tenent is freshness. That means that for coffee we don’t sell anything in retail stores that was roasted more than ten days ago. All our coffee is served within thirty minutes of being brewed and our espresso shots are only ten seconds old.
STEPHANIE: Does that mean you end up wasting a lot of coffee?
MARISSA: Yes, and from a manager’s perspective that is very tricky in terms of managing your inventory and also training your staff to be cognisant and respectful of the product. Respect the bean! When you go in a grocery store, or even most coffee shops, you probably don’t even know when it’s been roasted. And the staff might not either.
*note: Stephanie and BODA are in no way affiliated with Peet’s. We just like artisan food and companies with integrity.
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