Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a lover of coffee and you're looking for a place to shop, then you'll need to check out a coffee bean shop. These stores offer a wide assortment of whole beans from all over the world. These stores also sell unique trinkets, kitchenware and other products.

Some of these shops offer subscriptions to their coffee beans. Others offer coffee beans in bulk at their retail locations.

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee vendor specializing in international brews, as well as a variety of loose teas

When you step into this traditional West Village shop, the smell of fresh roasting beans fills the air. The shelves are stacked with jars and sacks filled with dark brown beans, with coffee-making equipment, tea accessories and sugar.

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

Porto Rico offers 130 different varieties of beans, which includes those from around the globe in three locations, including Bleecker Street, Essex Market and online. Porto Rico also roasts its own beans and offers wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC and types of Coffeee Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, the current president and coffee bean shop owner of the company was raised above the bakery of his family located on Bleecker Street where his father was the owner of Porto Rico. He runs the business in the same manner like his father and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

It 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 of 33 years, began roasting coffee in the loft on the fourth floor, just across the street, in the year 2011. They named it Lofted Coffee. Local clients included Greenpoint's Budin, and Soho cart services Peddler and Peddler.

Sey's reliance on micro-lots -- or even whole harvests from single farmers--has earned it the praise of highly discerning New York City coffee aficionados. In the past, Sey bought a six-bag micro lot of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The beans were hand-picked at peak ripeness and floated to remove defects and then dried fermented for a period of 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a blend that is fragrant with hints of berry and melon.

Sey's commitment goes beyond its shop to improve the overall health of employees and growers as well as customers. It makes use of biodegradable plastics and composts, preventing waste from the landfill and converting it into agents that reduce harmful greenhouse gases and enrich the soil. It also prevents gratuities. This lets baristas concentrate on their craft and to earn a living.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty coffee company, was founded in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. It began with a tiny shop and a dedicated staff. Their innovative and honest approach to providing a superior coffee experience has earned them a loyal following, not just in their home town and across the globe.

La Carba follows a strict procedure to find their perfect beans. They search through hundreds of lots each year to select the beans that best match their ideals. They roast them lightly, dialing in their desired flavor profile. This gives the coffees more intense flavor and clarity.

The East Village store, which opened in the month of October last year it has been praised for its premium pour-overs as well as its baked goods, which are overseen by Jared Sexton. He previously worked at Bien Cuit, Dominique Ansel as well as other coffee establishments.

The shop employs a La Marzocco modbar and the cups and plates are made by Wurtz ceramics in Horsens, an artist-run by a father and son. In a recent interview with 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 given time.

The Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant, a multi-unit retailer of coffee roasts and brews coffee on site. Each cup is brewed and roasted according to your requirements in less than a second. It searches far and far to find the finest specialty beans, which are directly sourced providing customers with choice and quality.

Their on-site roaster is a fluid bed device, which is different from traditional drum machines commonly found in UK coffee shops. The beans are blown into a heated container with high-speed air, which is circulated. This keeps the beans suspended and allows for a consistent roasting rate.

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

The roasted coffee is then whisked to the store's Eversys super-automatic brewing equipment and the coffee is brewed according to your preferences in less than a minute. Customers can choose from nine single origins as well as several blends.

Parlor Coffee

Parlor Coffee was founded in 2012 in a barbershop with a single group espresso machine. It has since evolved to become a burgeoning roastery, whose coffee beans are sold in top cafes, restaurants, and home brewers all over the city. Parlor is committed to sourcing high-quality beans from around the globe, each of which has endured a laborious journey before getting into the hands of its roasters.

The owners, who self-described as "passionate about the craft and believe that a good cup of coffee should accessible to everyone," have created a place that is a bit more 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, however they also have cuppings on Sundays that are open to the public. Imagine it as a tasting room, where you can taste and smell the ground beans. They vary from earthy to chocolaty (one was almost like tomato!). They're a bit off the beaten path and well worth a trip.