The acquisition game being played out since Monday has almost reached a conclusion. Vermont-based Green Mountain has won after Diedrich Coffee Inc. sided with the formers $265 million offer on Wednesday. Surprisingly, the heads of Diedrich said it was a “superior” proposal to Emeryville-based Peet’s Tea and Coffee Inc.’s offer of $265 million cash and stock arrangement.

The ball now is in Peet’s court who must decide whether to increase their offer or quit the game. Patrick O’Dea,  its chief executive made a statement saying, the company “over the next several days will consider all our alternatives and take the action we deem to be in the best interests of Peet’s shareholders.”

Since Monday, Peet’s and Green Mountain have surpassed or equaled bids for Diedrich, a distributor of coffee to offices and restaurants and vender’s of a recently developed type of single brewing cups. It begun with Pete’s offer of $213 million in cash and stock, followed by Green Mountain’s $247 million cash offer, topped by Peet’s $265 million cash and stock arrangement which was then matched by Green Mountain’s $265 million cash offer.

On Tuesday, Peet’s did not change its last offer, claiming the “potential upside for Diedrich’s shareholders through the Peet’s stock component.” K-Cups is the main attraction in bidding for Diedrich. You can easily brew one cup of coffee in a special machine with K-Cups where the coffee grounds get filtered out separately in different machines. They’ve been selling a lot in firms which are looking to economize on the coffee expenditure for employees. Other retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. also vend them.

Incidentally, a subsidiary of Green Mountain called Keurig Inc. are the inventors of K-Cups. Diedrich is one of many with the rights to make K-Cups. Peet’s want to sell Diedrich’s K-Cups in grocery stores already selling Peet’s coffee for additional sales. In the grocery store business Green Mountain has also been doing good and wants Diedrich to help with that to overtake Peet’s.

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