The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf brand is a leading global roaster and retailer of specialty coffees and teas. Herb Hyman and his wife, Mona, founded The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in 1963 after making several trips to her native Sweden

He fell in love with the European styles of coffee, which were far better quality than what was sold in the U.S. at the time. Herb Hyman was once dubbed as "the grandfather of specialty coffee in the US.

The first store in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles was opened in 1963, where founder Herb Hyman began importing and roasting coffee. The store sold bags of gourmet beans by the pound that were roasted daily in the store.

Growing into a chain, in 1987, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf founded the frozen coffee craze by introducing The Original Ice Blended® drink, using a hot chocolate powder and a special way of brewing a cold coffee extract that Hyman invented.

Then in 1998, the brand debuted its uniquely delicious Chai Tea Latte—an exclusive, handcrafted beverage made with premium tea and proprietary ingredients.

In 1970s Herb Hyman moved roasting facility to Camarillo and began to establish direct relationships with coffee growers. In 1996, the Hymans sold the Asian franchise rights to Singaporean brothers Victor Sassoon and Sunny Sassoon.

In 1998, the Sassoons, along with longtime friend Severin Wunderman, purchased the parent company, International Coffee & Tea LLC, from the Hymans, and took it global. On July 24, 2019, Jollibee Foods Corporation purchased The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for $650 million.
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

Douwe Egberts

This international company is organized along two divisions: coffee and grocery, and household and personal care products.

Douwe Egberts was founded in 1753 by Egbert Douwes and his wife Akke Thysses. They began selling coffee, tea, and tobacco their small shop, De Witte Os (The White Ox), in Joure, a small village of the Dutch province Friesland.

Originally Egbert Douwes only sold his product locally. However his son, Douwe Egberts who entered the business around 1780, built up a national reputation by supplying coffee and tea to shop owners throughout the country, spreading the fame of the Douwe Egberts brand.

Friesland was soon too small for the company’s activities and it started new production in Utrecht in 1919.

Gradually, the company grew to become the Dutch market leader for coffee. Douwe Egberts internationalized in 1927 opening production and distribution activities in Germany. By the 1950s, the company was responsible for over 59 percent of coffee exported from the Netherlands.

During the 1980’s the product range is broadened into household products realized mainly through acquisitions. Since 1978 there has been a joint venture with the US American based Sarah Lee. However brand names are strong and can be put to good use. In 2002, Douwe Egberts again went to the stock market under its own, slightly embellished, name, as De Master Blenders 1753.
Douwe Egberts

Arbuckle Brothers

Arbuckle was the product of two Arbuckle brothers, wholesale grocers of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who conceived the idea of shipping coffee already roasted. In 1860, Arbuckle entered the wholesale grocery business McDonald and Arbuckle, begun by his brother Charles, his uncle Duncan McDonald and his friend William Roseburg.

The uncle and friend left the business and John and Charles assumed charge. The Arbuckle Brothers coffee company packaged Yuban for wealthy urban people and Ariosa for rural markets and poor urban ones.

In 1864 Jabez Burns invented the self emptying roaster. The brothers John and Charles Arbuckle, bought a Burns machine and began to sell pre-roasted coffee in one-pound paper bags.

Arbuckle Brothers owned patent for machine capable of measuring a pound of roasted coffee, putting it in a paper bag, and sealing it.

By 1868, John Arbuckle’s formula for a tasty roasted coffee and his keen business expertise had revolutionized the coffee industry.

A good cup of coffee meant daily roasting until 1868, when Arbuckle perfected a glutinous mixture made of Irish moss, gelatin, isin-glass, white sugar and eggs for preserving the freshness of roast coffee.

Because Arbuckle’s coffee could be packaged and shipped, it was popular with campers and Westerners.

To persuade consumers to purchase his brand, Arbuckle hired an army of agents to write orders. The coffee was published with colored folksy handbills, trading cards and coupons redeemed for premium.

Arbuckle Brothers main coffee brand, Ariosa was wildly successful. In 1871, Arbuckle, opened a branch in New York.

In the 1880s, the company established branches in Kansas City, Missouri and Chicago. Customers could clip Arbuckle Brother’s coupons and redeem them for everything from guns to jewelry.

Arbuckle Brothers became the leading coffee provider to the West by creating fresh, easy to use coffee products with strong brand recognition. The 1873 trademark for the brand that Arbuckle targeted in the West, Ariosa, featured a flying angle.

Toward the end of the century Arbuckle’s included a stick of peppermint candy in each package and in 1893, collector’s trading cards featuring animal, cities of the word, US states and recipes.

In the Roaring Twenties, Prohibition advanced coffee as a nonalcoholic alternative and coffeehouses proliferated in American cities. Those brands that advertised widely did well, but Arbuckle Brothers refused to amount a national campaign and went into decline.

In 1937, the General Foods Corporation acquired a number of Arbuckle Brothers brand names, including Yuban, which had been served only to dinner guests by John Arbuckle.
Arbuckle Brothers 

History of Starbucks

Starbucks began in 1971 as one of many grassroots batch roasting firms started by idealistic, dedicated baby boomers rediscovering the joys of coffee made from freshly roasted, high quality Arabica beans.

Three Seattle friends started the company – Gordon Bowker, Jerry Baldwin, and Zev Siegl. Bowler was a writer, Baldwin was an English teacher and Siegl was a history teacher.

The original name of the first store, opened in 1971, was Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spices. Starbucks was named after Starbuck, first mate of the whaleship Pequod in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

By the time Siegl sold out in 1980, Starbucks had six retail outlets and was selling beans wholesale or restaurant and supermarkets.

In 1984, Starbucks bought out Peet’s Coffee and Tea. Jerry Baldwin decided to focus on Peet’s selling Starbucks for $3,800,000 to Howard Schultz, his former head of marketing.

On April 6, 1986, the first Italian-style II Giornale coffeehouse opened. It was tiny, 700-square food store near the main entrance to Seattle’s tallest building.

On its first day of business, almost 300 customers stopped by. Within six months of opening, it was serving 1,000 customers a day.

In addition to opening stores in the United Sates, Starbucks expanded abroad to Canada in 1987, Japan (1996), the United Kingdom (1998) and then to Continental Europe and the Middle East.

Starbucks opened its first store in China in 1999. By 2010, the company had 400 stores in China and400 more in Hong Kong.

In May 1998, Starbucks acquired the Seattle Coffee Company. At the time of the purchase it had 56 retail units.

By 2005, Starbucks had 469 stores in the United Kingdom, which made it the third largest countries, after the United States and Japan, to serve Starbucks coffee.
History of Starbucks

Standard Brands of coffee

Caleb Chase and James Sanborn decided to go into business together in 1863. Within 15 years, they had become the first in the industry to pack and ship roasted coffee in sealed tin cans.

In Boston, they founded Chase and Sanborn in 1878.

In 1929, Fleischmann Company bought the Royal Baking Powder Company (the owner of Chase and Sanborn) and was reincorporated as Standard Brands.

The main motive for the formation of Standard Brands in 1929 was to combine the distribution networks that Fleischmann and Royal Baking Powder had created in order to deliver highly perishable products to bakers and brewers.

Standard Brands coffee was based on the bi-weekly delivery system that the Fleischmann Company had worked out for its main product – yeast.

The light trucks that delivered the fresh yeast and coffee to the retailers were at first designed to carry a wide range of products which the retailer needed and would like to have fresh or frequently delivered. 

Standard Brands became one of the largest suppliers of grocery goods to supermarkets. In 1961, Standard Brands acquired Planters Nut and Chocolate Company.

In 1981 National Biscuit Company with headquarters in New York merges with Standard Brands to form Nabisco Brands, Inc.
Standard Brands of coffee

History of Chase and Sanborn Coffee Company

One of the early American coffee roasting companies was started in Boston by Caleb Chase and James Sanborn.

Caleb Chase moved to Boston and in 1864, he went on to business as a coffee roaster. While James Sanborn moved to Boston three years later and set himself as a coffee seller. They partnered to form Chase and Sanborn in 1874.

In 1878, Caleb and James Sanborn introduced canned coffee. They advertised heavily the Chase and Sanborn product heavily and consumers responded enthusiastically to is quality and convenience.

Chase and Sanborn claimed to import the best coffees in the world, which were then ground and packaged in Boston.

They hired local agents throughout the nation and Canada to tout the benefits of Chase and Sanborn’s sealed cans, a first in the industry.

By 1893 Chase and Sanborn had become established enough to be selected to supply coffee to all the salons of that year’s Chicago World’s Fair.

Chase and Sanborn coffees did well into the first half of the 20th century helped by heavy advertising. The company was the first ground coffee in America to be distributed coast to coast.

In 1929, Chase and Sanborn combined with Royal Baking Powder and Fleischmann to form a company called Standard Brands. In 1981, Standards Brands merged with Nabisco, which then sold off the coffee business to a small Miami firm, General Coffee.
History of Chase and Sanborn Coffee Company