Looking for Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf vegetarian options? Good news: most of the bakery case, from croissants to bagels, is already vegetarian. A handful of items are fully vegan too. The catch is the drinks. Several of the flavored syrups and powders, including the matcha, are made with dairy. A drink that sounds plant-based on the menu board isn’t always one you can order without asking first. This guide breaks down exactly what to order, what to skip, and what to double-check. For the bigger picture on eating out as a vegetarian, our full vegetarian dining guide covers the basics that apply everywhere, not just here.
A Quick Look at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf started in 1963, when Herbert and Mona Hyman began roasting and delivering coffee to Los Angeles offices. The couple opened their first retail store in 1968, in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. From there, the chain grew around coffee, tea, and the Ice Blended drinks it introduced in 1987, still the brand’s best-known product today.
Ownership changed hands more than once. Singaporean brothers Victor and Sunny Sassoon bought the Asian franchise rights in 1996. Two years later, they joined designer Severin Wunderman to buy the parent company, International Coffee & Tea LLC. Advent International took an equity stake in 2013, alongside Mirae Asset Private Equity and CDIB Capital. Then in 2019, the Philippines-based Jollibee Foods Corporation, which also owns the fast-food chain Jollibee, bought Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf outright for $350 million.
Today the chain runs a little over 200 US locations. Roughly three out of every four of them are in California. The rest are spread across Nevada, Hawaii, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Maryland, and Colorado. Globally, it’s a much bigger brand. More than 1,200 stores operate across two dozen countries, most of them in Asia and the Middle East, where Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has a far larger footprint than it does at home.
Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Vegetarian Options: What to Order
The table below covers the core menu, kept conservative on purpose. Anything marked “Check” means the ingredient sourcing wasn’t confirmed in the brand’s published nutrition information. Ask before you order if you’re strict about it.
| Menu Item | Vegetarian | Vegan |
|---|---|---|
| Egg & Cheese Bagel Sandwich | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (egg, cheese) |
| Spinach, Feta & Egg White Wrap | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (egg, feta) |
| Egg Bites (Spinach & Egg White) | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (egg, dairy) |
| Bacon Egg Burrito / Sausage Egg Cheese Burrito / Chorizo Egg Cheese Potato Burrito | ❌ No (meat) | ❌ No |
| Butter Croissant / Almond Croissant / Dark Chocolate Croissant | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (butter, egg wash) |
| Blueberry Scone / Lemon Poppyseed Scone | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (butter, cream) |
| Plain & Everything Bagels | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ Check (dough recipe not published) |
| Jalapeño Cheddar Bagel | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (cheddar) |
| Banana Walnut Loaf | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Maple Doughnut | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Homestyle Grilled Cheese | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (cheese, butter) |
| Chicken Salad Sandwich / Turkey & Ham Flatbread Club | ❌ No (meat) | ❌ No |
| Honey Ham & Swiss Croissant | ❌ No (ham, honey) | ❌ No |
| Bistro Protein Picnic Box | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (egg, cheese) |
| Apples & Peanut Butter | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Skinny Pop White Cheddar Popcorn | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (cheddar) |
| Vanilla Bean Syrup (drink flavoring) | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Vanilla, Matcha, Chocolate, Hazelnut & Caramel Powders (drink flavoring) | ✅ Yes | ❌ No (nonfat dry milk, sodium caseinate) |
Bakery and Breakfast
The croissants (butter, almond, dark chocolate), the scones, the muffins, and the loaves are all made with butter and egg. That works fine if you eat vegetarian, but it rules them out if you’re strict vegan. One real exception: the Banana Walnut Loaf, a confirmed vegan item at select California stores. The Maple Doughnut is vegan too.
Bagels are mostly a safe bet. Plain and Everything bagels don’t list any obvious animal ingredients, though the exact dough recipe isn’t published. Treat them as vegetarian-confirmed and vegan-likely rather than vegan-guaranteed. The Jalapeño Cheddar Bagel is a clear no for vegans, since it’s baked with real cheddar.
Breakfast sandwiches split cleanly by protein. The Egg & Cheese Bagel Sandwich, the Spinach, Feta & Egg White Wrap, and the Egg Bites are all vegetarian. The burritos (bacon, sausage, or chorizo) are not. There’s no vegetarian burrito on the menu as of this update, so if you want a hot breakfast wrap, the egg white wrap is your move.
Sandwiches and Boxes
The Homestyle Grilled Cheese is the one hot vegetarian sandwich on the lunch menu. Everything else built for lunch centers on meat: the Chicken Salad Sandwich, the Turkey & Ham Flatbread Club, and the Honey Ham & Swiss Croissant. None of them work for vegetarians, and the Honey Ham & Swiss Croissant is a double no for vegans, since it carries both ham and honey.
The Bistro Protein Picnic Box is a good vegetarian grab-and-go pick. It pairs a hard-boiled egg with sharp cheddar and fruit, so it’s vegetarian but not vegan. The standalone Hard Boiled Egg Box works the same way.
Drinks: Reading the Syrups and Powders
The drink menu runs wide: Ice Blended drinks and Ice Blended Tea, hot and iced Lattes, Espresso drinks, Brewed Coffee, Cold Brew Coffee and Cold Brew Tea, Tea Lattes, and Cocoa, plus seasonal beverages that rotate through the year. This is where Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf vegetarian options get complicated, especially if you’re vegan. Most of those drinks get their flavor two different ways: syrups and powders. They aren’t interchangeable. Vanilla Bean Syrup is dairy-free. Vanilla Powder is not. It contains nonfat dry milk and a milk derivative called sodium caseinate. The same split applies to the Chocolate, Hazelnut, Caramel, and Matcha flavors. Yes, even the matcha. Green tea powder sounds automatically plant-based, but Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf’s Matcha Powder is milk-based like the rest of its flavor line.
Want a vegan drink? Ask for the syrup version of a flavor, not the powder, and pair it with a non-dairy milk. The chain offers oat milk (Oatly Barista Edition), almond milk (Califia Farms), coconut milk (Pacific Foods), and soy milk (Silk) as swaps. Whether that swap costs extra depends on the store. Some locations offer it free, others add a surcharge, and there’s no single published company policy. Ask when you order instead of assuming either way.
Straight brewed coffee, cold brew, and plain hot or iced tea are vegan by default, with no flavoring involved. The seasonal Pumpkin Cold Brew is a real exception on the flavored side. The company makes it with vanilla bean and pumpkin sauce rather than dairy creamer, so it’s vegan at company-owned US stores when it’s in season.
Snacks and Desserts
Apples & Peanut Butter is a confirmed vegan snack, no substitutions needed. The Chocolate Chip Cookie, the gluten-free Monster Cookie, and the Artisan Berry Toaster Pastry are vegetarian. Their vegan status isn’t confirmed, since butter is standard in cookie recipes like these. Skinny Pop White Cheddar Popcorn is vegetarian but not vegan, thanks to the real cheddar seasoning. For a packaged vegan snack with a clear ingredient panel, the Kind bars are the safer read-the-label option.
What’s Vegan at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf?
The confirmed, ask-for-nothing vegan items are short but real: the Banana Walnut Loaf, the Maple Doughnut, and Apples & Peanut Butter. A seasonal vegan chocolate brownie shows up at select California stores in the fall. The Pumpkin Cold Brew is vegan at company-owned US locations when it’s on the seasonal menu. Beyond that, vegan drinks come down to one move: combine a dairy-free syrup, not a powder, with a non-dairy milk. That works for most of the flavored latte and Ice Blended lineup, as long as you order it that way.
Special Dietary Requirements and Allergies
The blenders used for Ice Blended drinks process dairy, soy, and tree nuts throughout the day. Because of that, the company can’t guarantee an allergen-free environment for those drinks, even when your own order skips those ingredients. If you have a severe allergy, brewed coffee, cold brew, or plain tea is the safer choice over anything blended.
The flavored powders are the biggest hidden-dairy trap on the menu. Vanilla, Matcha, Chocolate, Hazelnut, and Caramel Powders all contain nonfat dry milk and sodium caseinate, a milk-derived ingredient, even though nothing in the flavor name suggests dairy. Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf publishes a nutrition facts PDF on its website with calories and macros for each item. It doesn’t break out allergens item by item beyond that. For specific dairy, soy, gluten, or nut questions, ask in store or check the individual product page before you order.
Nothing in the ingredient information reviewed for this guide points to fish sauce, gelatin, or animal-derived rennet anywhere on the menu. That’s a genuine relief compared to some restaurant menus. Still, confirm locally if you’re strict, since recipes and suppliers can vary by market.
Tips for Vegetarians at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
- Ask for Vanilla Bean Syrup instead of Vanilla Powder for a vegan-friendly vanilla drink. Same flavor name, completely different ingredients.
- Don’t assume the Matcha Latte is plant-based by default. The powder itself is milk-based, so ask before you order if you’re vegan.
- Bring up your milk swap before you order, not after. Oat, almond, coconut, and soy are all available, but whether the swap is free depends on the store.
- Reach for the Banana Walnut Loaf, Maple Doughnut, or Apples & Peanut Butter for a vegan item with zero questions to ask.
- Vegetarian rather than vegan? The entire bakery case is fair game, since it’s built on butter and egg, not meat.
- Watch for seasonal swings. The vegan chocolate brownie and Pumpkin Cold Brew come and go with the calendar, so what’s available in October might not be there in February.
Conclusion
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf makes eating vegetarian easy. Nearly the whole bakery case is fair game, breakfast has a real egg-and-cheese option, and there’s a short but genuine vegan list if you know where to look. Slow down on the drinks, where a flavor name like vanilla or matcha doesn’t tell you whether it’s dairy-free. Ask about the syrup versus the powder, and you’ll know exactly what’s in your cup.
For more on eating vegetarian and vegan at restaurants generally, see our master guide. Browse more restaurant guides for other chains, including Peet’s Coffee, BIGGBY Coffee, and Tous Les Jours if you’re comparing bakery-café options.
