Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you are a coffee lover, you should go to a coffee shop. These shops provide a variety of whole beans from all over the globe. They also have unique trinkets and kitchenware.

Some of these shops offer subscriptions to their coffee beans. Some shops sell the beans in bulk.

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee shop that is a specialist in international brews, loose teas and a variety.

The scent of freshly roasted beans fills the air once you walk into this West Village shop. The sacks of dark brown beans line the shelves, along with jars of sugar, coffee-making equipment and tea accessories.

Porto Rico, originally opened in 1907 by Italian immigrant Patsy Albonese. At the time, Greenwich Village was seeing an increasing number of Italian immigrants who established businesses to serve their culinary requirements. Albanese named the shop after the popular Puerto Rican Coffee she imported and sold - a beverage that was so famous that at the time, even the Pope would drink it.

Porto Rico offers 130 different varieties of beans, including those from around the globe at three locations, coffee shop including Bleecker Street, Essex Market and online. The company also roasts their own beans and offers wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC, Brooklyn and Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, current owner and president, grew up in the family bakery on Bleecker Street, where his father was the owner of Porto Rico. He still runs the shop in a similar fashion as his father did and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

The shop is located along Grattan Street in Morgantown, Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, Sey Coffee is both a roaster and coffee shop. Tobin Polk, Lance Schnorenberg and their co-founders, who are 33 years old, started roasting coffee in an apartment on the fourth floor, just across the street in 2011. They called it Lofted Coffee. Local clients included Greenpoint's Budin and Soho cart services Peddler and Peddler.

Sey's preference for buying micro-lots, or even entire harvests, from farmers who are one has earned it the acclaim of New York City coffee enthusiasts. In the past they made a six-bag micro-lot purchase of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai 785 from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The beans were carefully picked at peak ripeness, floated to eliminate any defects, then dry fermented for about 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a blend with hints of berry and melon.

Sey's goal of holistically improving the well-being of growers, staff and customers extends beyond the shop. It makes use of biodegradable plastics and composts to keep waste out of garbage and converting it into substances that help reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions and feed the soil. It also does away with gratuity, which puts baristas into a position to sustain their livelihoods and inspire them to focus on their profession.

La Cabra

La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee business that was founded in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. It started with a small shop and a team of dedicated employees. Their open and creative approach to providing a unique coffee experience has earned them a following not only in their home town, but globally.

La Carba follows a strict procedure to find their perfect beans. They go through hundreds of beans each year in order to find the ones that best match their ideals. Then they roast them in a very light manner, dialing the roast to create their desired flavor profile. This results in more clarity and a better taste.

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

The shop employs the La Marzocco modbar, and the cups and plates are custom-designed at Wurtz ceramics in Horsens, an artist-run by a father and son. In a recent interview, Atlanta Coffee Shops General Manager Ian Walla revealed that La Cabra serves 250 different coffees a yea and has typically seven or eight coffees available at any time.

The Plant Coffee Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant is the only multi-unit retailer of coffee that roasts on-site and brews according to your preferences, with each cup of coffee roasting and brewed according to your requirements in less than one minute. It searches far and far for the finest quality, directly sourced specialty beans, offering customers choice and high-quality.

The on-site roaster employs fluid bed technology which is quite different from the drum-type machines commonly found in many UK coffee houses. The beans are blown around a heated container by high-speed air which keeps the green beans in suspension and allows them to be roasted at a consistent rate throughout the machine.

I tried the Sumatran Coffee and it was smooth and rich with a rich and velvety taste. Dark chocolate was evident in the aroma. And as you sipped the coffee you could smell subtle citrus fruit flavors.

The roasted coffee is then whisked to the Eversys super-automatic brewing equipment and brewed to your specification within less than a minute. Customers can choose from a variety of single origins and a range of blends.

Parlor Coffee

The company was founded in 2012 at the back of a barbershop, complete with one espresso machine in a single group, Parlor Coffee has become an energizing roastery whose coffees are sold at top restaurants, cafes and home brewers across the city. Parlor Coffee is dedicated to sourcing only the highest quality beans that have gone through a long journey before arriving at its roasters.

The owners, who self-described as "passionate about coffee and believe that good coffee should be accessible to everyone," have created a space that is grounded, with chalkboards, compost bins, up-cycled hand-made products, and a minimalist interior.

They roast their own blends (there were six at the time I was there) and single-origins. But they also have cuppings on Sundays, which are open to the general public. Imagine it as a brewery tasting area--you can smell and taste the beans that are ground. They range from earthy to chocolatey (one was almost like tomato!). They're off the beaten path but are worthwhile to visit.