Infusion Coffee & Tea Crafters

Roasted at the back of the room

The beans are roasted in house at the Tempe shop, which is the fact that shapes everything else here. Infusion opened in Tempe in 2015 as a coffee and tea house rather than a café that happens to sell both, and the roasting is done on site with lots tested before they reach the bar. Single origins rotate seasonally, following harvest cycles instead of a fixed lineup, and the buying runs on direct relationships with the farms. The owner brought three decades in coffee to it, spent teaching, consulting and judging competitions, and that is the backbone the counter is built on.

Four ways to brew, and tea taken just as seriously

Espresso, batch brew, pour over and cold brew all run at the bar, so one single origin can be tasted more than one way. Tea is not a courtesy line on the menu either: the name claims crafters of both, and the tea side is kept and stocked in its own right. The room works as a shop as well as a café, with beans, gear, gifts, subscriptions and wholesale orders going out from the same operation and shipping reaching well beyond Arizona. Tempe is one of two locations, the other in North Phoenix, and the room gets used for evenings built around craft and conversation as well as for daily service.

What to order

Order the rotating single origin and choose the method: pour over for the clearest read on the roast, batch brew if you would rather not wait, cold brew when Tempe is doing what Tempe does in summer. Espresso is the shortest route to the house style. If coffee is not the point, order tea, which is treated with the same care and is half the reason the place is named as it is. Take beans away afterwards, since that is what an in-house roasting operation is really for, and the subscription exists for the people who work that out.