Hilton guests to only drink Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf starting this summer

If you stay at any of the Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Double Tree or Embassy Suites hotels in North, South and Central America, you will find only one brand of coffee and tea in each room.

Hilton Worldwide, one of the world’s largest hotel chains, has signed an exclusive agreement with Los Angeles-based Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to provide the coffee and tea in the sealed packets that guests find in their rooms, starting this summer.

But if you are a fan of Starbucks or Seattle’s Best, don’t fret. The agreement won’t push out any coffee outlet that already operates in the hotels’ lobbies or restaurants.

“This is a way to shake things up for our guests without removing any walls,” said Jim Holthouser, executive vice president, global brand, for Hilton Worldwide.

One reason for the agreement, he said, was that Hilton will save money by buying in bulk.

Holthouser wouldn’t say how much the hotel chain would save, but he noted that guests at the three major hotel brands drink more than 100,000 cups of in-room coffee per day.

“You are talking about going through a whole lot of this stuff,” he said.

(c)2013 the Los Angeles Times. Distributed by MCT Information Services.