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Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a lover of coffee You'll want to visit a coffee shop. These stores offer a wide selection of whole beans from all across the globe. They also offer unique trinkets and kitchenware.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee seller that concentrates on international brews, loose teas, and a variety.

The scent of freshly roasting beans fills the air once you walk into 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.

Originally opened in 1907, Porto Rico was founded by Italian immigrants Patsy Albanese. At the time, Greenwich Village was seeing an influx of Italian immigrants who opened establishments to cater to their dietary needs. Albanese named her shop after the renowned Puerto Rican coffee she imported (and sold) which was so popular that even the Pope consumed it.

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 also roasts its own beans and offers wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC and Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, the current owner and president of the company was raised above the bakery of his family on Bleecker Street where his father operated Porto Rico. He continues to run the shop in the same manner as his grandfather and father.

Sey Coffee

It is located along Grattan Street in Morgantown, Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, Sey Coffee is both a coffee shop and roaster. Co-founders Tobin Polk and Lance Schnorenberg, both 33 began roasting in a fourth-floor loft around the corner from their new store in 2011 under the name Lofted Coffee (with local clients including Greenpoint's Budin and Soho cart service Peddler).

Sey's decision to buy micro-lots or whole harvests, from single farmers has earned him the respect of New York City coffee enthusiasts. In 2011, Sey purchased a six-bag micro lot of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The beans were picked when they were ripe and then steamed to eliminate any imperfections. They were then dried on the farm following a 36-hour dry fermentation. The result is a blend with hints of berry, melon and lemongrass.

Sey's commitment goes beyond its shop to improve the overall well-being of growers and staff, as well as customers. It makes use of composts and biodegradable disposables in order to ensure that waste is kept out of landfills. This helps reduce greenhouse gases as well as nourish the soil. It also does away with gratuity, which puts baristas into a position to help sustain their livelihoods and encourage them to focus on their profession.

La Cabra

La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee company founded in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. It began with a tiny store and a dedicated team. Their innovative and honest approach to providing an exceptional coffee experience has earned them a loyal following, not just in their hometown but all over the world.

La Carba follows a strict procedure to find their perfect beans. They scour through hundreds of beans each year in order to find the ones that best coffee fit their ideals. They roast them in a light manner before dialing them in to achieve their desired flavor profile. This gives their coffees an enhanced taste and clarity.

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

The shop employs the La Marzocco modbar and the cups and plates are made by 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 types of coffee per day and usually has seven or types of coffee eight varieties on offer at any given moment.

The Plant Coffee Roasting Plant Coffee

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

Their onsite roaster uses fluid bed technology, which is quite different from the drum-type machines that are commonly used in many UK coffee shops. The beans are blown into a heated box with high-velocity air that is circulated. This keeps the beans in suspension and ensures a consistent roasting speed.

I tried the Sumatran coffee and it was very rich with a velvety mouthfeel, dark chocolate from the fragrance was present, and the coffee began to cool as you sip and subtle aromas of citrus fruit were evident.

The coffee is whisked to the store's Eversys super-automatic brewing machines and it is brewed to your requirements in just a few minutes. 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 morphed to become a burgeoning roastery, whose beans can be found in a variety of great cafes, restaurants, and home brewers in every city. Parlor Coffee is committed to procuring the highest-quality beans, which have all been through a long journey before arriving at its roasters.

The owners, who self-described as "passionate about the craft and believe that great coffee should be accessible to all," have created a place that is a bit more grounded with chalkboards, compost bins, up-cycled handmade products, and minimal decor.

They roast and create their own blends as well as single-origins (there were six on the menu when I was there) They also have cuppings on Sundays that are open to the public. Think of it like a brewery tasting room--you can smell and taste the ground beans, from chocolatey to earthy (one was almost tomato-like!). It's a bit off the beaten path but worth the trip.