Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a fan of coffee You'll want to go to a coffee bean shop. They offer a wide variety of beans that are whole from all over the world. These stores also sell unique trinkets, kitchenware and other items.

Some of these shops offer subscriptions for their coffee beans. Others sell the beans in bulk at their retail stores.

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee seller who concentrates on international brews, loose teas and a selection.

The scent of freshly roasting beans fills the air when you walk into this West Village shop. The shelves are stacked with jars and bags of dark brown beans, along with tea-making equipment, coffee accessories and sugar.

Porto Rico, originally opened in 1907 by Italian immigrant Patsy Albonese. Greenwich Village at the time was experiencing an influx Italian immigrants, who had opened businesses in order to meet their food needs. Albanese named the shop after the popular Puerto Rican coffee bean shop she imported and sold - a beverage that was so popular in the moment that the Pope would drink it.

Today, Porto Rico sells 130 varieties of beans from all over the world at three locations in New York City including their Bleecker Street location, Essex Market and online. The company also roasts its own beans and provides wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC and Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, the current owner and president of the business was raised above the bakery of his family located on Bleecker Street where his father operated Porto Rico. The owner continues to run the shop in the same manner as his father and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

Sey Coffee, a coffee shop and roaster, is located along Grattan Street, in Morgantown. The neighborhood, which is part of Brooklyn's Bushwick district is situated on Grattan Street. Co-founders Tobin Polk and Lance Schnorenberg, both 33, started roasting in a fourth-floor loft located across the street from their new location in 2011 under the name Lofted Coffee (with local clients including Greenpoint's Budin and Soho cart service Peddler).

Sey's commitment to buying micro-lots, or even entire harvests, from farmers who are one has earned it the respect of New York City coffee enthusiasts. The last time Sey was in the market, he purchased a six-bag micro lot of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai from Brazil's Espirito-Santo region. The beans were hand-picked at their peak ripeness, floated to eliminate any defects, then dry fermented for 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a blend with hints of berry, melon and lemongrass.

Sey's goal of holistically improving the well-being of employees, customers and growers extends beyond the retail store. It makes use of biodegradable disposables and composts, preventing waste from the landfill and converting it into agents that lower harmful greenhouse gases and enrich the soil. It also reduces gratuity. This allows baristas to concentrate on their work and support their livelihoods.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty coffee brand, was founded in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. The company began with a small store and a committed staff. Their honest and creative approach to delivering an extraordinary coffee experience earned them a following that was not only in their own town, but globally.

La Carba has a rigorous process to find their perfect beans, going through hundreds of different lots each year to identify the ones that are perfect for their tastes. They then roast them very light, adjusting the desired flavor coffeee profile. This gives the coffees greater clarity and coffee bean shop a more vibrant taste.

The East Village store opened last October with a sleek minimalist design, and has been praised worldwide by coffee lovers for its precise pour-overs and baked goods supervised by head baker Jared Sexton, who's previously worked at Bien Cuit and Dominique Ansel.

The shop is equipped with a La Marzocco modbar, and the plates and cups are made by Wurtz ceramics in Horsens, which is a father-son studio. In a recent Q&A session with Atlanta Coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves about 250 different coffees a year, and usually has seven or eight varieties on offer at any given moment.

The Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant, a multi-unit retailer of coffee, roasts and brews its coffee on the spot. Each cup is roasted and brewed according to your specifications in less than seconds. It searches far and far to find the finest specialty beans, which are directly sourced that provide customers with a choice and high-quality.

Their onsite roaster is a fluid bed device, which is different from the traditional drum machines that are used in UK coffee shops. The beans are blown through a heated container with high-speed and circulating air. This keeps the beans in suspension and allows for a consistent roasting speed.

I tried the Sumatran Coffee and it was incredibly rich and velvety with a velvety taste. Dark chocolate was evident from the aroma and as you sip the coffee there were subtle citrus fruit flavors.

The coffee is whisked to the Eversys super-automatic brewing equipment and you can have your coffee brewed to your specifications in just a few minutes. Customers can choose from nine single origins and several blends.

Parlor Coffee

It was founded in 2012 in the back of a barbershop, complete with one espresso machine in a single group, Parlor Coffee has become an energizing roastery whose coffees can be found in top restaurants, cafes and home brewers in the city. Parlor is dedicated to sourcing the highest-quality beans around the globe, each of which is a long, arduous journey before arriving in the hands of its roasters.

The owners, who are self-described as "passionate about their craft and believe that great coffee should be available to everyone," have created a environment that is simple and has chalkboards, compost bins, up-cycled hand-made products, and minimal decor.

They roast and create their own blends as well as single-origins (there were six on the menu when I was there) They also hold cuppings on Sundays, and are open to the public. Imagine it as a brewery tasting area where you can smell and taste the beans as they are roasted. They are a mix of earthy and chocolate (one was almost like tomato!). It's a bit off the beaten path, but worth the journey.