Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a coffee enthusiast, you must visit a coffee shop. They offer a wide assortment of whole beans from all across the globe. They also sell exclusive trinkets, kitchenware and other items.

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 seller specializing in international brews, as well as a variety of loose teas

The aroma of freshly roasting beans fills the air once you enter this West Village shop. The shelves are filled with jars, sacks and dark brown beans, along with tea-making equipment, coffee 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 experiencing an influx of Italian immigrants, who opened businesses in order to meet their dietary needs. Albanese named the shop after the famous Puerto Rican Coffee she imported and sold - a beverage that was so well-known at the moment, even the Pope would drink it.

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 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 business was raised above his family's bakery located on Bleecker Street where his father was the owner of Porto Rico. He continues to run the shop 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. Co-founders Tobin Polk and Lance Schnorenberg, both 33 started roasting in the fourth-floor loft located across the street at their new location in 2011 under the name Lofted Coffee (with local clients including Greenpoint's Budin and Soho cart service Peddler).

Sey's preference for micro-lots or even whole harvests from single farmers--has earned it the praise of highly discerning New York City coffee aficionados. 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 handpicked at the peak of ripeness, then floated to remove defects, then dry fermented for a period of 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a blend with hints of berry lemongrass, and melon.

Sey's dedication to holistically improving the well-being of staff, customers, and growers extends beyond the walls of the shop. It makes use of biodegradable plastics and composts to keep waste out of garbage and converting it into substances that reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions and feed the soil. It also eliminates gratuity. This lets baristas concentrate on their craft and earn a living.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty coffee company, was founded in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. The company began with a small store and a team of dedicated employees. Their honesty and ingenuity to providing a unique coffee experience earned their acclaim not just in their hometown, but globally.

La Carba follows a strict procedure to identify their ideal beans. They search through hundreds of lots each year to find those that best meet their standards. Then they roast them in a very light style, dialing them in to achieve their desired flavor profile. This gives the coffees a greater clarity and a more vibrant taste.

The East Village store opened last October with a sleek and minimalist design. It's been praised by international coffee enthusiasts for its scrumptious 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 utilizes a La Marzocco Modbar as well as the cups, plates and bowls are crafted by Wurtz ceramics, a father-and-son studio in Horsens. In a recent Q&A interview with Atlanta Coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves around 250 different coffees per year, and typically has seven or eight varieties on offer at any given time.

The Plant Coffee Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant is a multi-unit retailer of coffee roasts and brews coffee on site. Each cup is roasted and brewed according to your preferences in less than seconds. It searches far and far to find the finest specialty beans, which are directly sourced that offer customers a variety and high-quality.

Their onsite roaster is a fluid bed machine, which is different from the traditional drum machines that are used in UK coffee shops. The beans are blown about in a heated container by high-speed air that keeps the beans in a suspended state and allows them to be roasted in a steady manner throughout the machine.

I tried the Sumatran coffee and it was delicious with a an enveloping mouthfeel, dark chocolate scent was evident and the coffee began to cool as you sip delicate citrus flavours fruit were detected.

The coffee is then be transferred to the store's Eversys Super-Automatic brewing Machines and brewed according your preferences within less than a minute. Customers can pick from nine single origins and various blends.

Parlor Coffee

Parlor Coffee was founded in 2012 in a barbershop with a single group espresso machine. It has since developed into a flourishing cheap coffee beans roastery, and its beans can be found in a variety of great cafes restaurants, cafes, and home brewers throughout the city. Parlor is dedicated to sourcing high-quality beans from across the globe each of which is a long, arduous journey before arriving in the roasters.

According to their own words according to their own words, they "have an unrelenting love of craft and believe that good coffee beans delivery should be available to everyone." They achieve that with their down-to-earth streetscape that is a mix of residential and commercial. Think compost bins, chalkboard welcome, handmade up-cycled products and a minimally-decorated space.

They roast and make their own blends and single-origins (there were six when I was there) However, they also do cuppings Sundays, which are open to the public. Imagine it as a brewery tasting area--you can taste and smell the beans that are ground. They are a mix of earthy and chocolate (one was almost like tomato!). It's a bit off the beaten path but worth the trip.