Peugeot Saveurs

The Peugeot story begins in 1810, when brothers Jean-Pierre and Jean-Frédéric Peugeot converted the family grain mill in the Doubs region of eastern France into a steel foundry. They made saw blades, springs and rolled steel — and earned a reputation for steel so precise and so hard-wearing that in 1850 the family adopted the lion as its mark: resistant teeth, a flexible blade, a clean cut. That same lion would later prowl across the bonnets of Peugeot automobiles, but it was forged first in the kitchen.

In 1840 came the first Peugeot grinding mill, made for coffee. Then, in 1874, the Model Z — the first Peugeot table pepper mill, and the object that would define the brand. Its principle has never been bettered: a two-stage, case-hardened steel mechanism that first cracks each peppercorn, then grinds it to an even size, releasing the essential oils that pre-ground pepper has long since lost.

Everything still happens at the family factory in Quingey, in the Doubs. The beechwood is turned, varnished and painted on site; the mechanisms are stamped and assembled with what Peugeot calls a goldsmith's care. The brand makes a different mechanism for each spice — pepper, dry salt, wet salt, chilli, nutmeg, coffee — because each grinds differently, and a mill that treats them all the same treats none of them well.

More than two million Peugeot mills leave France each year, and the mechanism inside every one carries a lifetime guarantee. It is the reason a Peugeot mill is rarely thrown away and often handed down. You are not buying a grinder. You are buying the last one you will need.