Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you are an avid coffee drinker, you should visit a coffee shop. These shops offer a broad assortment of whole beans from all over the world. They also sell exclusive trinkets, kitchenware and other items.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee seller that is a specialist in international brews, loose teas, and a wide selection.

The scent of freshly roasting beans fills the air as you enter this West Village shop. Open bags of dark-brown beans line the shelves, along with jars of sugar as well as coffee-making equipment and tea accessories.

Porto Rico, originally opened in 1907 by Italian immigrants Patsy Albonese. At the time, Greenwich Village was seeing an increasing number of Italian immigrants who had opened businesses to cater to their culinary needs. Albanese named her shop after the popular Puerto Rican coffee she imported (and sold) which was that was so popular at the time that even the Pope was a fan.

Porto Rico offers 130 different varieties of beans, including beans from all over the world at three locations, including Bleecker Street, Essex Market and online. The company roasts its own beans and provides wholesale distribution for 350 restaurants in NYC, coffee shop Brooklyn and Brooklyn.

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

Sey Coffee

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 the loft on the fourth floor just across the street in the year 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 single farmers has earned it the praise of New York City coffee enthusiasts. Last year, Sey purchased a six-bag micro lot of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai, a Brazilian coffee from the Espirito-Santo region. The beans were harvested when they were ripe and floated to remove any defects. They were then dried on the farm following a 36-hour dry fermentation. The result is a coffee with hints of berry lemongrass, and melon.

Sey's dedication extends beyond its shop to improve the overall health of staff and farmers, as well as customers. It utilizes biodegradable disposables as well as composts to keep waste out of landfills and turning it into agents that reduce harmful greenhouse gases and nourish soil. It also eliminates gratuity, a move that places baristas in the position to help sustain their livelihoods and motivate them to concentrate on their craft.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty coffee brand, was founded in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. The company started with a modest store and a dedicated staff. Their honest and creative approach to delivering a truly exceptional coffee experience earned their acclaim not just in their own town, but globally.

La Carba has a rigorous method of identifying their ideal beans, searching through hundreds of different lots a year to find the ones that fit their ideals. They roast them lightly, dialing in their desired flavor profile. This gives their coffees a brighter taste and clarity.

The East Village store opened last October with a sleek, minimalist design. It has been praised by global coffee enthusiasts for its scrumptious pour overs and baked goods that are overseen by head baker Jared Sexton, who's previously worked at Bien Cuit and Dominique Ansel.

The shop is equipped with the La Marzocco modbar and the cups and plates are designed specifically for 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 usually has seven or eight coffees available at any given time.

The Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant A multi-unit coffee retailer roasts and brews coffee on site. Each cup is roasted and brewed according to your preferences in less than a second. It is a search engine for the highest quality specialty beans that are sourced directly providing customers with choice and quality.

Their on-site roaster utilizes fluid bed technology that is a bit different to the drum-type machines that are commonly used in the majority of UK coffee gifts shops. The beans are blown around a heated container by high-speed air which keeps the beans suspended and allows roasting to happen at a consistent rate when they pass through the machine.

I tried the Sumatran Coffee and it was velvety and rich with a smooth taste. Dark chocolate was evident in the aroma. And as you sip the coffee, there were subtle citrus fruit flavours.

The roasted coffee will be whisked into the store's Eversys Super-Automatic brewing Machines to be brewed according your preferences in less than a minute. Customers can select from nine single origins and several blends.

Parlor Coffee

Parlor Coffee was founded in 2012 behind a barbershop, with a single group espresso machine. It has since grown into a burgeoning coffee roastery, whose coffee beans are available in top cafes as well as restaurants and home brewers across the city. Parlor Coffee is committed to procuring the highest-quality beans, that have all undergone a long journey before arriving at its roasters.

In their own words, they "have an unstoppable passion for craft and a belief that good coffee should be available to anyone." They do just this by putting their home-like street space, which includes compost bins, chalkboard welcome handmade up-cycled items, and low-frills deco.

They roast and make their own blends and single-origins (there were six at the time I was there) 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 beans in the ground. They are a mix of earthy and chocolate (one was similar to tomato!). It's a bit off the beaten path, but well worth the trip.