Guatemala supplied the first coffee beans Starbucks’ founders purchased when the company began in 1971.
Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker opened Starbucks in Seattle with a focus on selling high-quality roasted beans. The founders bought their first green coffee beans from Guatemala, an important coffee-producing country in Central America.
This detail is sometimes confused with Starbucks’ later global sourcing network, which expanded across many coffee-growing regions. Guatemala remained significant to the company’s coffee identity, but it was not Starbucks’ only source.
The early Starbucks business was influenced by Alfred Peet, whose Berkeley coffee shop promoted darker roasting and specialty coffee. That influence helped shape Starbucks before it became a worldwide beverage retailer.