Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a coffee connoisseur and you're looking for a place to shop, then you'll need to try out a coffee bean shop. These shops sell a range of whole beans from all over the world. They also have unique kitchenware and trinkets.

Some of these coffeee shops offer subscriptions for their coffee beans. Some shops offer coffee beans in large quantities.

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee retailer specializing international brews and a variety of loose teas

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

Originally opened in 1907, Porto Rico was founded by Italian immigrant Patsy Albanese. Greenwich Village at the time was witnessing an influx of Italian immigrants, who established businesses to meet their food requirements. Albanese named the shop after the popular Puerto Rican Coffee 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 around 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 company was raised over the bakery of his family located on Bleecker Street where his father operated Porto Rico. The business is still run by the business in the same fashion as his father did and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

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 specialty coffee their co-founders of 33 years, began roasting coffee in the loft 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 focus on purchasing micro-lots, or even whole harvests from single farmers been praised by highly discerning New York City coffee aficionados. Last year they made a 6-bag micro-lot purchase of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai 785 from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The beans were hand-picked at the peak of ripeness, then floated to get rid of any imperfections, then dry fermented for about 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a cup with hints of berry lemongrass and Specialty coffee melon.

Sey's goal of holistically improving the wellbeing of staff, growers and customers extends beyond the store. It uses biodegradable disposables and composts to keep waste out of landfills and turning it into substances that reduce harmful greenhouse gases as well as nourish soil. It also does away with gratuity, a move that places baristas in the position to sustain their livelihoods and inspire them to focus on their craft.

La Cabra

La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee business that was founded in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. They began with a small shop and a committed team. Their honest and creative approach to delivering an extraordinary coffee experience earned them a following, not just in their own town, but globally.

La Carba follows a strict process to find their perfect beans. They scour hundreds of beans each year to find beans that match their ideals. Then they roast them in a light style before dialing the roast to create their desired flavor profile. This gives their coffees a brighter taste and clarity.

The East Village store, which opened in October last year and has been praised by critics for its premium pour-overs and baked goods, overseen 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 made by Wurtz ceramics in Horsens, which is a father-son studio. In a recent interview with Atlanta Coffee Shops General Manager Ian Walla revealed that La Cabra serves 250 different coffees per day and usually has seven or eight different varieties available at any given moment.

The Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant is the only multi-unit coffee retailer which roasts on-site and brews to order with each cup of coffee being roasted and brewed to your specifications in less than a minute. It searches the world for the finest specialty beans that are directly sourced offering customers a the option of choice and quality.

Their onsite roaster is a fluid bed device, which is different from traditional drum machines commonly found in UK coffee shops. The beans are blown in the heated box using high-speed air that is circulated. This keeps the beans in suspension and allows for a constant roasting rate.

I tried the Sumatran coffee drinks and it was rich and velvety with a velvety flavor. Dark chocolate was evident from the aroma. And as you sip the coffee, you could detect subtle citrus fruit aromas.

The coffee that has been roasted is transported to the store's Eversys super-automatic brewing machines and you can have your coffee brewed to your specifications in just a few minutes. Customers can select from nine single origin options and a wide range of blends.

Parlor Coffee

It was founded in 2012 in the back of a barbershop that had a single-group espresso machine, Parlor Coffee has become a rapidly growing roastery whose beans are found at great cafes, restaurants and home brewers in the city. Parlor Coffee is committed to finding the highest-quality beans, which have all been through a long journey before reaching its roasters.

According to their own words in their own words, they "have an unrelenting passion for craft and believe that good coffee should be accessible to anyone." They do just that with their down-to-earth streetscape that is a mix of residential and commercial. Think compost bins, a chalkboard welcome, handmade up-cycled products and a simple deco.

They roast and brew their own blends and single-origins (there were six at the time I was there) However, they also hold cuppings on Sundays, and are open to the public. Imagine it as a brewery tasting room where you can smell and taste the ground beans. They vary from earthy to chocolatey (one was similar to tomato!). They're off the beaten path, but well worth a trip.