About Me
Dunkin' Donuts is the largest coffee and baked goods chain in the world providing you, our loyal customers, with high quality coffee, bagels, donuts and other baked goods since 1950. To learn more, check out our corporate history and the biography of our founder, Bill Rosenberg.It's all the delicious details that make Dunkin' Donuts Just the Thingâ„¢ for millions of people every day. Serving close to a billion cups of rich and smooth coffee each year, the Dunkin' Difference is in the details. It takes a special bean and a rigorous process to produce Dunkin' Donuts consistently high quality coffee. Dunkin' Donuts has a reputation for brewing high quality coffee for more than 50 years. This is no easy feat. Like creating a fine wine, there are countless steps involved in producing coffee; and Dunkin' Donuts coffee experts travel around the globe to ensure quality at each turn.The Dunkin' Difference has been clear for over 50 years. But coffee has been around a lot longer than that! Starting with a legend of caffeinated goats to earning its place as a morning ritual for millions, the story of the coffee evolution is grounded in Ethiopia but has touched every corner of the globe. Here, a look at coffee throughout the ages:Ancient Ethiopia
Heard the one about the goats who ate "coffee berries" and had to count sheep at night to fall asleep? Yes, the story of Kaldi the goatherd is rooted in the Ethiopian Highlands. Legend has it that Kaldi's flock feasted on coffee berries and was unable to sleep at night. Once the lonely goatherd reported his findings to the local monastery, the monks experimented with the berries and created a drink that helped keep them alert for long hours of evening prayer. Word of the energizing berries began to spread...Cultivation in the Arabian Peninsula, 1400s - 1500s
By the 15th century, coffee was beginning to be cultivated and traded on the Arabian Peninsula. And by the 16th century, coffee had caught on in Persia, Egypt, Syria and Turkey. As the Koran forbade Muslims to drink alcohol, it is thought that coffee's energizing properties were found to be an appealing substitute. In addition to homes, coffee was also being drunk in public coffee houses, which featured music, performers, chess games and socializing.As thousands of pilgrims from all over the world made visits each year to the holy city of Mecca, the coffee buzz began to spread beyond Arabia. Nevertheless, the Arabians closely guarded their coffee production in order to maintain their complete monopoly."The Bitter Invention" of Satan reaches Europe, 1600s
By the 17th century, coffee had arrived in Europe; however, not without controversy. Venice clergy condemned it calling it the "bitter invention of Satan." Pope Clement VIII was asked to intervene, but would not rule on the matter without tasting it. He liked it so much he gave it "papal approval."Coffee houses began to pop up in major cities in England, Austria, France, Germany and Holland and became centers for enlightened conversation and socializing. By the mid-17th century, London boasted more than 300 coffee houses.As coffee demand spread, so did competition to cultivate coffee outside of Arabia. The Dutch finally succeeded in the second half of the 17th century on the island of Java, which is now Indonesia.From the Netherlands to France, to the Caribbean and Central America, early 1700s
In 1714, the Mayor of Amsterdam presented a coffee plant to King Louis XIV of France for planting in the Royal Botanical Garden in Paris. In 1723, a naval officer took a seedling from the plant and planted it on the island of Martinique. The seedling is credited with the spread of more than 18 million coffee trees in the next 50 years and yielded trees throughout the Caribbean and Central America.Billion Dollar Seeds: A Furtive Gift from French Guyana to Brazil, mid 1700s
Brazilian Francisco Mello Palheta was sent by his country's emperor to French Guiana to obtain coffee seedlings. The French, however, were unwilling to share. The French Governor's wife was said to be so captivated by Palheta that she presented him with a going-away bouquet of flowers. Inside the bouquet, he found enough coffee seeds to begin what is today a billion-dollar industry.Worldwide Commodity Crop, late 1700s
In the course of 100 years, coffee established itself as a commodity crop throughout the world. Missionaries, travelers and colonists continued to bring coffee seeds to new worlds, and trees were planted all over the globe. By the end of the 18th century, coffee had become one of the world's most profitable export crops.The Patriots Drink, 1773
Though coffee was brought to "the New World" in the mid-1600s, tea was the favored drink there until 1773, when colonists revolted against a high tax on tea imposed by King George. The Boston Tea Party converted America to a coffee-loyal nation.Dunkin' Donuts, 1940s -1950s
Bill Rosenberg invests $5,000, to form Industrial Luncheon Services. Soon enough, he took a big idea in a little truck and turned it into his first shop, "Open Kettle", in Quincy, Massachusetts. In 1950, the name changed to Dunkin' Donuts. In 1955, his first franchise agreement was signed and executed in Worcester, MA, and the rest, as we say, is history.https://www.dunkindonuts.com/aboutus/store/Search.as
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