text: This is hands down the BEST coffee in AZ.  If you like good coffee (i.e. light roasted and you know what an Aeropress, Chemex, Hario is) look no further. I'm a big fan of light-medium body with fruit or caramel notes. I highly recommend the Arada or the Aricha. Those have been my 2 faves since going regularly for the past 9 months. I ordinarily will get a bag of beans for my at-home morning Aeropress. They run about $15-20ish bucks a bag. While I've had some excellent quality coffee beans for a little cheaper, the price is well worth it. Sometimes I will also stay and treat myself to a manual Aeropress or Hario, and service is excellent. I recommend a manually brewed cup, because it's much purer, and it feels like the barista makes the cup just for you, personalized, usually with a fun coffee cup (my last one was an old school mug with Bambi on it, haha). Staff is really down to earth, cool, friendly, and helpful. If curious about what kind of beans you may like, ask them, and you'll get superb recommendations. The quality of this coffee is premium. It may very well be the best I've had. I also love that they roast in house and also have beer on the other side of the bar.\n\nI really want to give this 5 stars. If I'm going off purity of coffee alone, this is easily 5, BUT you also need to take into account atmosphere when you go here. If you're going to hang out with friends or people watch, it's great. A little hipster, but I admittedly enjoy that in a place. However, if you're looking for a quiet and relaxing coffee house getaway, this is not the place for you. If you don't study or read or write well in crowds, get your coffee to go. The place is usually bustling, and they play music loudly (I get the feeling the employees just plug in their ipods to speakers). This is my only criticism. Sometimes I want a relaxing, quiet coffee shop experience, and Cartel -- for all its excellent coffee quality -- doesn't provide that. I think once, a weekday afternoon -- when they were playing Arthur Russell's \"Soon-To-Be Innocent/Let's See\" (kuddos to the employee who had that on their ipod) -- it was lovely and chilled out, but that was a rare exception.