Arizona Coffee

Is this really how coffee shop owners feel? When I pay with a credit card are they really thinking this every time?

Two events are happening Saturday in Tempe you will not want to miss:

Free coffee tasting at Lost Dutchman Coffee Roastery from 1:30-4:00 pm.

Cortez Coffee Company is hosting their grand opening for their coffee market from 8 am – 7 pm.

Longtime valley coffee roaster Ron Cortez is announcing the grand opening of his new coffee bar and market at Cortez Coffee.

They’re opening on April 14th with an event this Saturday, April 14th. Click here for driving directions.

Hours are 8 am – 7 pm daily, Monday through Saturday.

They have a barista for the evenings that is a DJ, and this Saturday will be featuring guest baristas. Each Saturday, they are offering coffee classes (green, roasting or coffee brewing), and you can call for reservations.

Cortez Coffee Company sent along the following information:

Coffee nerds beware! After almost 2 decades of roasting coffee for some of the best local coffee shops, Tempe-based coffee roaster Cortez Coffee is finally opening its doors to the public with the debut of their new coffeebar and coffee market. This Saturday, April 14th, will be the grand opening of the new face of the Cortez Coffee Company, by flaunting their unhealthy obsession for all things coffee.

Come down to the shop to sample one or a dozen of the 19+ single origin coffee selections Cortez roasts on a daily basis, check out the frankenstein’d espresso machine at the front bar offering the most ground breaking unlisted menu of coffee drinks in the Phoenix area, heck… the world even!

If you’re drinkin’ what they’re pourin’ make sure to pick up a bag of whole bean coffee to go, or if you’re feeling the urge to cross over to the darkside of coffee, take home a bag of green coffee and a home roaster to start roasting your own joe.

The market will offer a huge selection of whole bean roasted coffee and for the first time in the history of awesome shopping experiences, a green coffee market with small batch roasting stations for you to create and roast your own coffee blends while you’re enjoying a cup of coffee by some of the most creative baristas in town.

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There’s a great event this weekend in Tempe you should not miss: The free coffee tasting at Lost Dutchman Coffee Roastery. From 1:30-4:00 pm and will be held under a tent right outside the roastery. The weather is going to be beautiful!

The featured coffees are:

• A very special Colombian (name to be announced)
• A Sumatran (Blue Batak from the Lake Tawar region)
• Hacienda La Minita (a Tarazzu from Costa Rica)

The coffee will be available to sample free and there will be coffee available for purchase; both roasted and also in green coffee form for those that like to roast their own.

Coffees will be brewed by a local master chef, who is an expert in specialty coffee brewing techniques. I hear that Biscotti will also be served. Click here for driving directions.

The Lost Dutchman Coffee Roastery
1920 E 3rd Street
Ste 9
Tempe, AZ 85281
Phone: (623) 217-1304

A photo of the Probat coffee roaster at the Lost Dutchman Coffee Roastery. I took this photo recently on a tour of their operation, and will be doing a full profile soon.

Update: Victor from Lost Dutchman wrote in to say that the first 10 customers get free t-shirts.

From a recent trip to old town Scottsdale.

If you are in the Tucson, AZ area, stop by Cartel on Campbell this Friday at 7 pm for free food and drinks.

Update: Check out this time lapse video.

I just got an invite to the launch party for Provision Coffee, which Daniel Suh is involved with. I don’t really know much else but wanted to get the word out, it looks like they’re roasting coffee, and developing relationships with farmers.

Provision Coffee is a non-profit, faith-based, specialty coffee company that maintains direct relationships with farmers in developing countries in an effort to benefit their communities.

They have published a video which explains what they’re doing:

Provision Coffee
3107 S. Gilbert Rd
STE #103 PMB 09
Gilbert, AZ 85295
Phone: (661) 810-9477

Today on Twitter, Giant Coffee unveiled their new mural on the back of their building. Very cool. You can follow Giant on Twitter at @giantcoffeeaz.

I’ve had this mug since 2008. It’s one of my cooler mugs in that it changes color when you pour a hot drink in it.

One of the coolest creative spaces in Phoenix is Monorchid, and a new coffee shop is opening soon inside that space. It’s called Songbird Coffee and from what I understand, will be opening in late May to early June.

Thanks to Jonathan Carroll for the tip.

Songbird Coffee
214 East Roosevelt Street
Phoenix, AZ 85004
Twitter: @songbirdcoffee
Facebook: facebook.com/SongbirdCoffeeHouse

Today is a special day for Arizona Coffee! It’s the 7th anniversary of this site’s launch! Yes, in case you didn’t know, this site has been around a little while! I first began this site in March, 2005.

This site wouldn’t be what it is without the loyal support of my many sponsors! THANK YOU! Sponsorship funds go right into, well, buying coffee and going places. I’m super thrilled with the development of the coffee community in AZ, and am proud to be a small part of it. Thanks to everyone for such a great ride! Here’s to the next seven years!

When did you first discover Arizona Coffee? Answer in the comments, or the poll below.

Cartel Coffee Lab’s Tucson location is getting a makeover and Cartel just published this rendering of the new space, along with a floor plan.

Back in February Cartel posted a photo of the construction on Facebook. They’ve expanded the location and from the announcement, it looks like they are doing something with bicycles. Maybe a bicycle rack. Sounds cool!

It turns out that the world record is held by these two guys (see video) at 623 espresso/hour.

The SWRBC was held this weekend in California, and while nobody from Arizona won, it looks like it was a great event. This video, created by the coffee shop that hosted the competition, shows some of the competitors.

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Joe Johnston, a partner at Liberty Market in Gilbert, writes in to share how they recently made the switch to Stumptown Coffee at their E-61 bar.

Annually, at Liberty Market we do a blind tasting of espresso from local and national roasters to determine which espresso we want to feature in our E61 Bar. This year we selected Portland roaster Stumptown Coffee to be our purveyor. As far as we know, Liberty Market has the only espresso bar in town using Stumptown. The blend we selected was Stumptown’s “Hair Bender”. The selection team included Chef Traina, our two lead baristas, and myself. The coffees (9 this year) were tasted in a completely blind competition with each person evaluating the overall character of the coffee both as straight espresso and with steamed milk added. Each person’s scores and opinions were kept private. When all of the scoring was completed, the results were tallied. We then took the top three and did the testing all over again. These scores were used to determine the winning coffee.

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