The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

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The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

Type of Company	Private
Founded	In 1963 in Brentwood, California
Headquarters	Los Angeles, California
Key people	Sunny Sassoon, CEO Melvin Elias, COO
Industry	Restaurants
Products	Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Ice Blended
Revenue	$120 million USD (2003)
Employees	3,000 (2003)
Website	coffeebean.com

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is a Los Angeles, California-based coffee chain, owned and operated by International Coffee & Tea, LLC. The company was founded by Mona and Herbert Hyman. It is one of the oldest and largest privately held chain of specialty coffee and tea stores. The first store opened in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood in 1963. It now has stores all around the Southwest United States and expanding to Hawaii. A franchise purchase by the Singaporean entrepreneur Victor Sassoon in 1996 opened "Coffee Beans" throughout Southeast Asia. It now has more than 300 locations around the world.

Coffee Bean stores differ from other coffee chains such as Starbucks with their broad selection of tea drinks. It also popularized The Original Ice Blended® drinks and Chai Lattes.

Operated by International Coffee & Tea LLC, the company had sales revenue of $120 million in 2003. It offers wi-fi access at 144 of its locations. Franchises exist mainly overseas with domestic locations largely company-owned. Countries where franchises are offered are currently: Singapore, Israel, Korea, United Arab Emirates, Brunei, Australia, Indonesia, East Malaysia, Philippines and Kuwait.[1]

[edit] Trivia

Most, if not all, of the products at "the Bean" are certified as Kosher. At least one Coffee Bean store even goes to the extent of solely using Cholov Yisroel (חלב ישראל) milk in their dairy products.
Unlike Starbucks, Coffee Bean has fared fairly well in its entry into the Israeli coffee chain market. This may be attributed to its kosher food selection and the fact that it allows its patrons to smoke.