The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

What is up? This is your LA in a minute. Today I'm going to talk about the history of LA's caffeine pioneer, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. So Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf actually predated Starbucks by eight years, opening their first location in the Brentwood country market in 1963. So it was in 1963 when Herb Hyman, an undergrad at UCLA at the time, created a successful office coffee delivery service and that's where he met his bride to be, Mona. Mona was an immigrant from Sweden so after marriage they went on their honeymoon to Sweden and around Europe and they recognized that the canned coffee being served all around the US at the time was just an inferior product, especially compared to the rich European coffee they'd been tasting. Together they decided that it was time to educate Americans in the styles and varieties of beans and roasting so they opened a premi And now, Dey Regour, the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf was a novel concept at the time, having its own roaster and selling bags of freshly roasted beans. They also had a sample bar and lessons in how to properly brew coffee, again very unique at the time. Thanks to the elite location, celebrities often stopped by including Johnny Carson, Nancy Reagan and Jacques Cousteau who they counted amongst their loyal customers. By the late 1970s, the Hymans had expanded to 10 stores in Southern California and also added exotic teas to the menu. So now here's where things really get significant, okay? In the 1980s, 10% of their sales were from drinks prepared in the stores and 90% were beans, tea leaves and things But there was an intrepid employee in 1987 who brought a blender just So the ice blended was a game changer. Keep in mind this was eight years before Starbucks introduced their Frappuccino and because of that, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf saw a surge in popularity becoming the largest coffee chain in the United States at the time. So in 1991, as Starbucks was planning to expand into Los Angeles, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz attempted to purchase the firm from Hyman, but Hyman turned them down. The operating of Starbucks stores in Los Angeles unexpectedly helped Coffee Bean sales by driving curious customers into the area and into the stores. In 1996, the Hymans sold the Asian franchise rights to the Singaporean brothers Victor and Sonny Sassoon. The Sassoon's acted quickly, opening international stores in Singapore and Malaysia and opening as many coffee beans in the first two years as the Hymans had opened in their first 35 years in the United States. In 1998, the Sassoon's purchased Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and took it completely global. Today's celebrities still love the brand from Tom Cruise and Jennifer Aniston to Eddie Murphy. With 1,100 locations in 32 countries, the company that brought the world's coffee to the United States and ice blend into the world started right here in LA.