Herbert Hyman launched an office coffee service in 1963, when most Americans drank canned, pre-ground coffee left stewing on hot plates. In 1966 he married Mona, and on their honeymoon in Sweden the couple tasted carefully prepared European coffee that reset his ambitions. In 1968 he opened the first Coffee Bean store in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, importing whole beans, printing their countries of origin on the labels, roasting on site, and letting customers sample before buying. By the 1970s there were ten Southern California locations and exotic teas on the shelves. Then, in the summer of 1987, an employee at the Westwood store brought in a blender from home and mixed ice, coffee extract, and chocolate powder into what became the Ice Blended.

In 1991 Starbucks offered to buy Hyman out ahead of its Los Angeles expansion, and he refused. In 1996 the Hymans sold the Asian franchise rights to Singapore brothers Victor and Sunny Sassoon, who opened in Singapore that year, in Malaysia the next, and reached 29 stores in two years. In 1998 the Sassoons and a silent partner bought the parent company outright. The brand later passed through Advent International in 2013 and was bought by the Philippines-based Jollibee Group for $350 million in 2019. Hyman died in 2014 at 82.

• The Ice Blended predates the Starbucks Frappuccino by years.
• Roughly seven million pounds of coffee a year are still hand roasted, and teas hand blended, in Camarillo, California.
• By 2024 the chain had 1,232 stores in 24 countries.
• Company-owned Southern California stores dropped their storewide kosher certification in June 2020, while Singapore and Malaysia operations stay halal certified.
• In 2019 the Singapore division apologized after SAF Day artwork showed a Chinese soldier instead of a Singapore Armed Forces member.