Tchibo was founded in 1949 in war damaged Hamburg by Max Herz and Carl Tchilinghiryan, its name a blend of Tchilinghiryan and Bohnen, the German word for beans. It began as a mail order roaster shipping fresh beans through the post, which built the distribution muscle behind its later model: every week a new world. Alongside coffee, its shops and the roughly 22,000 Frischdepots it had placed in bakeries and supermarkets by 2002 sell a rotating range of clothing, furniture, and electronics that disappears after seven days, turning a coffee run into a treasure hunt.

The cash funded bets far from coffee: shares in Nivea maker Beiersdorf in 1977 and majority control of cigarette producer Reemtsma in 1980, sold to Imperial Tobacco in 2002 for 5.2 billion euros. A 1986 video game console flopped, but buying rival Eduscho in 1997 gave Tchibo 20% of the German coffee market. The model failed in Britain, where a trade publication called it a dressed up discount store and the shops closed in 2009. Today parent company maxingvest is owned by three members of the Herz family.

• In 2006 Tchibo sold the Davidoff cigarette brand to Imperial Tobacco for 540 million euros but kept Davidoff Café.
• The UK retreat shrank its board from 11 directors to four and pulled concessions out of Somerfield and Sainsbury’s in late 2008.
• Tchibo returned to the UK online in 2016 and bought the Scottish roaster Matthew Algie the same year.
• After the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Tchibo stopped roasting and marketing in Russia and sold its subsidiary there.
• In 2003 Ingeburg, Michael, and Wolfgang Herz bought out siblings Günter and Daniela, consolidating control.