The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

The company's coffees fall into seven categories: Light & Subtle, Light & Distinctive, Medium & Smooth, Dark & Distinctive, Decaffeinated, Flavored, and Reserve.[23] It roasts approximately seven million pounds of coffee annually. All of the beans are hand-roasted at its roasting facility in Camarillo, California.[24] The beans come from farms in Costa Rica, Colombia, Kenya, Indonesia, Jamaica, Thailand, and Sri Lanka.[24][25] The firm offers several seasonal holiday drinks, in flavors including candy cane, gingerbread, red velvet cake, eggnog, and peppermint.[24][26][27][28] For the company's 50th anniversary in 2013, it introduced a Birthday Cake Ice Blended.[29]

The company's teas fall into seven categories: Green, Black, Oolong, Herbal Infusion, Decaffeinated, Flavored, and Tea Master's.[30] All of the teas are hand-blended at its facility in Camarillo, California.[24] The Chai Tea Latte, one of the chain's most popular drinks, was first served in 1998.[13] In March 2014, the company introduced its Tea Granita beverage in two flavors, Pear Berry and Passion Fruit.[31][32]

CBTL, a single-serve system for home use, was launched in the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and the Philippines in 2010.[33][34] Several types of single-serve capsules are available for the machines: espresso, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate.[33]

All Coffee Bean coffees, teas, and the powders used to make other beverages, are certified kosher. As of June 2020, Coffee Bean ended its storewide kosher-only certification for stores and bakery items in Southern California.[35] Storewide kosher certification was ended for Coffee Bean locations in the Las Vegas area months earlier.[36] While Coffee Bean had planned to move away from kosher-only certification to provide more offerings as a phased rollout before the COVID-19 pandemic, the company said the crisis accelerated its plan.[35]

Prior to June 2020, all company-owned locations in Southern California were certified kosher.[37] During that time, most in California and Nevada had signed and dated certificates indicating that the entirety of their items were kosher in conformance to the standards of the certifying agency, the Kosher Supervision of America.[38] Even before June 2020, privately owned franchise stores could opt-out of kosher certification.[39]

All the company's locations in Singapore[40] and Malaysia[41] are halal.

A popular coffee shop chain was under fire for how it addressed repeated discoveries of a bathroom peeping Tom at a couple of its stores, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.[49] According to Courthouse News, lead plaintiff Roderick Smith discovered the first spy camera nestled in the u-bend of the sink in an Encino, California, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf store in October 2011. Smith said after he noticed the device inside the bathroom's unisex facilities, he immediately told management at the shop but was told the camera looked more like a flash drive, according to Smith's attorney Brian Kabateck. In a statement obtained by CBS Los Angeles, the company said: “We believe that our cooperation helped lead to the arrest of the suspect. In light of the pending litigation surrounding this matter, we are unable to comment further at this time.” [50]

The Singapore chain of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has apologized for a blunder in its original promotional artwork to mark SAF Day, which featured a soldier in uniform. However, the soldier did not appear to be from the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). The chain pulled the promotion from its Facebook page shortly after and issued an apology for the mistake. It said: "Our SAF Day Celebration artwork that went out earlier was incorrect. We sincerely apologize for the mistake. Thank you very much for your comments and kind understanding."[51] A few hours later, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf shared a new promotional artwork on Facebook that featured an ice-blended drink, instead of a soldier. While some social media users defended the coffee chain, there was still some backlash from others.

After the news hit that the friendly neighborhood felines of One Bonifacio High Street suddenly disappeared, rumors began to circulate that the adjacent hotel had hired a pest control company called Pestbusters to get rid of them. The angry people of the Internet discovered that The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is part of the Table Group, which also runs Pestbusters, the pest control company that “dealt with” the cats. The coffee chain has been implicated by association and is now being disavowed by its patrons. The Facebook page called Rats of BGC was set up, with an event called "Hanapan ng Pusa sa Shangri-la," with the goal of pointing out that the hotel will rue their decision to get rid of the cats when the rats start pouring in.[52]

CBTL has been facing negative publicity for its usage of battery-cage eggs in the food it provides in its locations across the globe.[53] Due to the cruel conditions on those farms, as well as the health risks associated with eggs produced in battery cages, the European Union Council Directive 1999/74/EC banned caged farms back in 2012.