New Peet's Ready-To-Drink Tea Available Now in Select Markets

EMERYVILLE, Calif., June 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Peet's Coffee & Tea, Inc., (Nasdaq: PEET), the premier specialty coffee and tea company in the U.S., today announced the introduction of Peet's Bottled Iced Teas, a line of exceptional ready to drink teas made from Peet's whole tea leaves.

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The six new iced tea varieties are crafted from green, oolong, white and black teas. Five of the six are complimented with all natural flavors such as peach, mint, citrus and honey to accentuate the unique flavor characteristics inherent in each tea. The result is very refreshing, true tea flavor, ranging from light and delicate to robust and full-bodied depending on the tea varietal. Peet's Bottled Iced Teas are all natural, very lightly sweetened and include an unsweetened version.

'We've taken everything we know from our 43 years in the tea business and crafted unique recipes that bring out the best flavor in each iced tea,' said Eliot Jordan, Peet's Tea Master of nearly 20 years. 'It took us about five years to perfect this and get true tea taste into a bottle, but I think we finally got it right.'

In the process of developing the exacting recipes, Jordan has cupped countless whole leaf teas from around the world and tinkered endlessly to create just the right tea blends. Unlike most other bottled teas made from powdered tea leaves, Peet's uses only the highest quality whole leaf teas sourced from the top 2% of tea in the world.

According to Chris Lansing, Vice President/General Manager at Peet's, cold tea is the primary way in which people consume tea in the U.S. and over the last several years, the bottled tea market has grown steadily at about 15 percent.

'Our bottled iced teas are everything you'd expect from Peet's - extraordinarily high quality tea brewed so that the real taste of the tea shines through. The refreshing true tea taste stands out among the many 'tea sodas' that are sugary or artificially-flavored,' said Lansing.

'What many people don't know is that Alfred Peet, our founder, started in the tea business before becoming internationally renowned for his coffee,' added Lansing.