Blog entry by Keira Estevez
Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops
If you are a coffee enthusiast, you should visit a coffee shop. These shops offer a broad assortment of whole beans from all across the globe. They also sell unique trinkets, kitchenware, and other things.
Some of these shops offer subscriptions to their coffee beans. Others offer the beans in bulk buy coffee beans at their retail locations.
Porto Rico Importing Co.
Veteran coffee seller who specialises in international brews loose teas, and a wide selection.
When you walk into this old-fashioned West Village shop, the smell of fresh roasted beans fills your nose. The sacks of dark brown beans line the shelves, along with sugar jars, coffee-making equipment as well as tea accessories.
The first restaurant opened in 1907, Porto Rico was founded by Italian immigrant Patsy Albanese. At the time, Greenwich Village was seeing an increasing number of Italian immigrants who established businesses to meet their culinary requirements. Albanese named the shop after the famous Puerto Rican Coffee she imported and sold - a drink that was so well-known that at the time, even 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 roasts its own beans and offers wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC and Brooklyn.
Peter Longo, current owner and president, was raised in the family bakery located on Bleecker Street, where his father ran Porto Rico. He continues to run the shop in a similar way to his father and grandfather.
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 co-founders of 33 years, began roasting coffee in a loft on the fourth floor, just across the street in 2011. The name was Lofted coffee beans for sale. 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 a single farmer has earned it the respect of the most discerning New York City coffee aficionados. Last year, Sey purchased a six-bag micro lot of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The beans were picked at their peak of ripeness and then floated to eliminate any imperfections. They were then dried on the farm after a 36-hour dry fermentation. The result is a cup that has hints of the melon and berry.
Sey's commitment goes beyond its shop to improve the overall well-being of employees and growers as well as customers. It uses biodegradable disposables and composts, keeping waste out of landfills and converting it to substances that help reduce harmful greenhouse gases as well as nourish soil. It also removes gratuities. This allows baristas to concentrate on their craft and to earn a living.
La Cabra
La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee company founded in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. It started with a small shop and a dedicated staff. Their honest and innovative approach to providing a superior coffee experience has earned them a loyal following not just in their home town and across the globe.
La Carba has a rigorous process to find their perfect beans, searching through hundreds of different lots every year to locate the ones that match their ideals. They roast them in a light manner before dialing the roast to create their desired flavor profile. This gives the coffees more vibrant flavor and clarity.
The East Village store opened last October with a sleek, minimalist design, and has been praised by international gourmet coffee beans aficionados for its exacting 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 employs the La Marzocco Modbar, and the cups, plates, and bowls are custom-designed by Wurtz ceramics, a father-and-son studio located in Horsens. In a recent interview Atlanta Coffee Shops General Manager Ian Walla revealed that La Cabra serves 250 different coffees per day and typically has seven or eight varieties on offer at any given moment.
The Plant Coffee 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 an hour. It searches the world across the globe for the highest-quality specialty beans, which are directly sourced that provide customers with a choice and quality.
The roaster on site uses fluid bed technology that is a bit different to traditional drum-type machines found in most UK coffee houses. The beans are blown through a heated container with high-speed air, which is circulated. This keeps the beans suspended and allows for a constant roasting rate.
I tried the Sumatran Coffee and it was incredibly rich and velvety with a smooth taste. Dark chocolate was evident in the aroma. And as you sipped the coffee, you could taste subtle citrus fruit flavors.
The roasted coffee will then be whisked into the store's Eversys Super-Automatic brewing Machines and brewed according your specifications within less than a minute. Customers can select from nine single origin selections and a range of blends.
Parlor Coffee
Founded in 2012 in the back of a barbershop with an espresso machine with a single group, Parlor Coffee has become an energizing roastery whose coffees are found at great restaurants, cafes and home brewers across the city. Parlor is dedicated to sourcing high-quality beans from around the globe, each of which has been through a long and difficult journey before arriving in the hands of its roasters.
The owners, who self-described as "passionate about the craft and believe that a good cup of coffee should be accessible to everyone," have created a space that is down-to earth with chalkboards, compost bins, up-cycled handmade items, and simple decor.
They roast and make their own blends and single-origins (there were six when I was there) They also do cuppings Sundays, which are open to the public. Imagine it as a tasting room where you can taste and smell the beans in the ground. They vary from earthy to chocolatey (one was almost like tomato!). They're off the beaten path but are it's worth the trip.