Best Independent Coffee Roasters in Tempe, Arizona (2026)

Tempe is an ASU university town anchored on Mill Avenue and the lake — distinct from Phoenix proper, with a coffee scene that leans small, owner-operated, and tightly tied to the East Valley.

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Tempe has 7 active independent coffee roasters in our directory as of May 2026, and the scene reads differently than Phoenix's. With about 80,000 students at Arizona State University at its core, the city has a different center of gravity than the broader Valley — closer to its customers, more small-batch in character, and oriented toward the East Valley spine that runs through Mesa, Chandler, and Gilbert.

Cortez Coffee Company has been roasting here since 1993, which makes it one of the longest-running specialty operations in all of Arizona. The rest of the Tempe roster spans a Colombian fourth-generation farmer running a cafe near campus, a husband-and-wife engineering duo who started during the pandemic, a former teacher who taught himself to roast on a cast-iron skillet, and a converted-bank cafe that's been open since 2002. Every roaster on this list owns their roasting operation and sells primarily through their own cafes, websites, and wholesale relationships, not through franchise systems or corporate parents.

What follows is a guide to who they are, what they roast, and where to find them.

The Long-Established Names

Cortez Coffee Company

Cortez has been roasting in Tempe since 1993, founded by Ronald Cortez — a third-generation Costa Rican coffee farmer. The roastery sits at 1030 E Vista Del Cerro Drive, and the operation runs on a vintage Spanish drum roaster paired with consistent in-house lab testing. The brand has grown into one of the longest-running independent specialty operations in the state, with a "more than fair" sourcing philosophy built around direct relationships with farmers. They ship nationally and are sometimes credited under "Cafe Cortez" — same family, same lineage. Cortez is also the rare Tempe roaster with multi-decade reference status across the Phoenix metro.

See their full profile on Roast Local | Visit their website

Xtreme Bean Coffee Company

Xtreme Bean has been waking up Tempe since 2002, operating out of a converted bank building at 1707 E Southern Avenue. Family-owned, on-site roasting, and locally rooted for more than two decades — the cafe pulls a steady mix of students, regulars, and people who've followed the brand since it opened. Their roasting program covers a range of profiles from bold to approachable, and the cafe runs a long daily schedule that fits the East Valley rhythm.

See their full profile on Roast Local | Visit their website

Lost Dutchman Coffee Roasters

Lost Dutchman has been roasting in Tempe since 1999, with a clear focus on small-batch, single-origin coffees and bold blends. They run two traditional drum roasters — an Ambex and a Probat — out of a Tempe roastery, and operate online-only with weekend local pickups across Phoenix, Chandler, Mesa, Tempe, Gilbert, and the broader metro. There's no walk-in cafe; if you're going to taste their coffee, you're either ordering online or grabbing a Saturday pickup. That model has kept the operation lean and squarely focused on the roasting itself.

See their full profile on Roast Local | Visit their website

The Owner-Operated New Wave

Cafetal Coffee

Cafetal Coffee is run by Sebastian Ramirez, a fourth-generation Colombian coffee farmer, with a cafe at 777 South College Avenue near the ASU campus. Ramirez visits his father's farm in Colombia each fall to check the harvest, then roasts those beans in-house at the Tempe shop on a commercial roaster that runs about four batches an hour. The menu pairs the coffee with arepas, empanadas, and Latin breakfast and lunch — making Cafetal one of the few Tempe operations where the bean is genuinely traceable back to a single family farm. Featured by phoenix.org in their write-up of Tempe coffee shops that "treat coffee like fine wine."

See their full profile on Roast Local | Visit their website

Wilderbloom Coffee Roasters

Wilderbloom is the husband-and-wife team of Sarah and Zach Hartke, who started roasting at home in Tempe during the pandemic in 2020. Both engineers by training, they built the operation around small-batch quality and an Arizona-wilderness identity — the brand is named both for the bloom that happens when hot water hits fresh coffee and for the desert and high country they spend their off-time in. A portion of every coffee canister sold goes to support National Parks. Phoenix New Times covered the operation in a feature on small-batch Tempe roasters, and Commonly Coffee named Wilderbloom Roaster of the Month in April 2025. They sell through their website and direct customer relationships rather than running a walk-in cafe.

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Derek Sips

Derek Sips is a family operation built by Derek Robinson, a former teacher who taught himself to roast coffee on Christmas Eve 2012 using a cast-iron skillet, an open flame, and a wooden spoon. He rebranded the business as Derek Sips in 2019, and today it's a true family business — kids help with labeling, his wife with packaging, and Derek delivers locally with one or two of his children riding along. Coffee is roasted to order and shipped whole-bean so customers grind to their own brewing preferences. Affordable, fresh, and meaningfully small-scale.

See their full profile on Roast Local | Visit their website

Pair Cupworks

Pair Cupworks was founded in 2017 by Kimhak Em and Eugenia Tai, who moved to Phoenix from the Bay Area in 2015. Kimhak handles the roasting — he came up at Peixoto Coffee Roasters in Chandler and has more than three decades of food-service experience — while Eugenia built the brand's original visual identity from a graphic design and structural engineering background. Pair started roasting in 2019 (covered by Daily Coffee News) and ran a Tempe Bouldering Project location for a stretch before consolidating their cafe presence in Downtown Mesa. Wholesale and direct online sales reach across the East Valley.

See their full profile on Roast Local | Visit their website

The Tempe scene in context

Tempe sits inside the broader Phoenix metro, which means roasters here often share customers, wholesale routes, and the same pool of independent cafes with operators in Phoenix proper, Tucson, and Flagstaff up north. What sets Tempe apart is the density of small, owner-operated programs — a Colombian family farm represented in the cafe near campus, a 30-year-old Costa Rican family operation, and a generation of pandemic-era startups still finding their footing. We map 95 active independent roasters across Arizona, and Tempe punches above its size with seven of them.

Browse the full Tempe list

These roasters represent the indie operators with verified active roasting programs in Tempe. The directory keeps growing — new entries arrive regularly as roasters claim their profiles or as we surface additional operators across the East Valley.

See all Tempe coffee roasters →

FAQ

How many independent coffee roasters are in Tempe?

Tempe has 7 active independent coffee roasters in our directory as of May 2026 — Cafetal Coffee, Cortez Coffee Company, Derek Sips, Lost Dutchman Coffee Roasters, Pair Cupworks, Wilderbloom Coffee Roasters, and Xtreme Bean Coffee Company. Our count focuses on operators who roast their own beans, not cafes that resell other roasters' coffee.

What makes Tempe's coffee scene distinct from Phoenix?

Tempe is an ASU university town with about 80,000 students at its core, which gives the local coffee scene a different center of gravity than Phoenix proper. Roasters here lean toward the small-batch, owner-operated end of the spectrum, with a customer base that runs from students and faculty to long-time East Valley residents. The downtown Tempe and Mill Avenue corridor also sits at the gateway to Mesa, Chandler, and Gilbert — so Tempe roasters often serve a wider East Valley footprint than their address suggests.

Do Tempe coffee roasters ship nationwide?

Five of the seven Tempe roasters ship nationally — Cortez Coffee Company, Derek Sips, Lost Dutchman, Pair Cupworks, and Xtreme Bean. Lost Dutchman in particular is online-and-pickup only, with no walk-in cafe. Cafetal and Wilderbloom focus on local sales and direct customer relationships, with Wilderbloom reachable through their website contact form.

What's the longest-running coffee roaster in Tempe?

Cortez Coffee Company has been roasting in Tempe since 1993, founded by Ronald Cortez — a third-generation Costa Rican coffee farmer. That makes Cortez one of the longest-running independent specialty roasters in the entire Valley, predating most of the Phoenix specialty wave by more than a decade.