Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you are an avid coffee drinker, you must visit a coffee shop. These shops provide a variety of whole beans from around the globe. These stores also sell unique trinkets, kitchenware and other items.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee vendor who concentrates on international brews, loose teas, and a variety.

The aroma of freshly roasted beans fills the air when you enter this West Village shop. The shelves are stacked with jars and sacks of dark brown beans, along with coffee-making equipment, tea accessories and sugar.

In 1907, the first time it was opened, Porto Rico was founded by Italian immigrant Patsy Albanese. Greenwich Village at the time was witnessing a surge of Italian immigrants, who set up businesses in order to meet their food requirements. Albanese named her shop after the popular Puerto Rican coffee she imported (and sold) which was that was so well-known at the time that even the Pope was a fan.

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. Porto Rico roasts their own beans and provides wholesale distribution for 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 continues to operate the shop in a similar manner as his father and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

The shop is located along Grattan Street in Morgantown, Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, Sey Coffee is both an espresso bar and a coffee roaster. Tobin Polk, Lance Schnorenberg and their 33-year-old co-founders began roasting coffee in an apartment on the fourth floor just around the corner, in 2011. The name was Lofted Coffee. Local clients included Greenpoint's Budin and Soho cart services Peddler and Peddler.

Sey's preference for buying micro-lots, and even whole harvests from single farmers has earned him the respect of New York City coffee enthusiasts. In the past they made a 6-bag micro-lot purchase of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai 785 from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The beans were carefully picked at their peak ripeness, removed by flotation to eliminate defects and dried fermented for a period of 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a blend with hints of berry melon and lemongrass.

Sey's mission extends beyond the shop to improve the overall well-being of growers and staff, and customers. It makes use of composts and biodegradable disposables to ensure that waste is kept out of the landfills. This helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also nourish the soil. It also eliminates gratuity, a move that puts baristas into a position to support their livelihoods and inspire them to focus on their art.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty coffee company, was founded in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. The company began with a small shop and a committed team. Their open and creative approach to delivering an extraordinary coffee gift experience has earned them a following not only in their home town but also around the world.

La Carba follows a strict process to find their perfect beans. They search through hundreds of lots each year in order to find the ones that best match their ideals. They roast them in a very light style then dial the roast to create their desired flavor profile. This gives the coffees greater clarity and a more vibrant taste.

The East Village store, which was opened in October of last year, has been praised for its high-quality pour overs, as well as the baked goods, overseen and managed by Jared Sexton. He previously worked at Bien Cuit, Dominique Ansel and other coffee houses.

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

The Roasting Plant Coffee

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

Their onsite roaster uses fluid bed technology that is a bit different to traditional drum-type machines found in many UK coffee shops. The beans are blown about in a heated box by high-velocity air, which keeps the beans in a suspended state and allows roasting to happen at a consistent rate as they move through the machine.

I tried the Sumatran coffee and it was rich with smooth mouthfeel, dark chocolate aromas were present, and the coffee began to cool as you sip and subtle aromas of citrus fruit were detected.

The coffee is then be poured into the Eversys Super-Automatic Brewing Machines and Specialty Coffee brewed according your specifications within less than a minute. Customers can pick from nine single origin selections and a wide range of blends.

Parlor Coffee

Parlor Coffee was founded in 2012 in a barbershop equipped with a single group espresso machine. It has since evolved into a flourishing coffee roastery, whose coffee beans can be found in great cafes as well as restaurants and home brewers in every city. Parlor Coffee is committed to sourcing the highest quality beans that have been through a lengthy journey before arriving at its roasters.

According to their own words the owners "have an unrelenting love of craft and believe that good coffee should be available to everyone." They accomplish this by putting their home-like streetscape that is a mix of residential and commercial. Think compost bins, chalkboard welcome handmade up-cycled items, and a minimalist deco.

They roast their own blends (there were six when I was there) and single-origins, however they also have cuppings on Sundays, which are open to the public. Imagine it as an artisanal tasting room in which you can smell and taste the beans, ranging from chocolaty earthy (one was almost tomato-like!). They're away from the tourist trail and is worth a visit.