Mathew Deshotel

Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a coffee lover and you're looking for a place to shop, then you'll need to visit a coffee bean shop. They offer a wide selection of whole beans from all across the globe. They also offer unique kitchenware and trinkets.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee vendor who concentrates on international brews, loose teas and a selection.

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

Porto Rico, originally opened in 1907 by Italian immigrants Patsy Albonese. Greenwich Village at the time was experiencing an influx Italian immigrants, who had opened businesses in order to meet their culinary needs. Albanese named her shop after the well-known Puerto Rican coffee she imported (and sold) which was so popular that even the Pope took a sip.

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 coffee beans. Porto Rico roasts their own beans and offers wholesale distribution for 350 restaurants in NYC, Brooklyn and Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, current owner and president, grew up in the family bakery on Bleecker Street, where his father ran Porto Rico. He still runs the shop in the same way like his father and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

It is located on 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 an apartment on the fourth floor just around the corner, in the year 2011. They called it Lofted Coffee. Local clients included Greenpoint's Budin, and Soho cart services Peddler and Peddler.

Sey's emphasis on buying micro-lots--or even whole harvests from a single farmer has been praised by the most discerning New York City coffee aficionados. In the past, they made a six-bag micro-lot purchase of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai 785 from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The beans were hand-picked at peak ripeness, floated to remove defects and then dried fermented for 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a coffee that has hints of the melon and berry.

Sey's commitment extends beyond its shop to improve the overall wellbeing of employees and growers as well as its customers. It uses biodegradable disposables and composts to keep waste out of landfills and converting it to substances that reduce harmful greenhouse gases as well as nourish soil. It also does away with gratuity, which puts the baristas in a position to sustain their livelihoods as well as encourage them to concentrate on their art.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty cheap coffee beans company, was established in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. It started with a small shop and a dedicated team. Their honesty and ingenuity to delivering an extraordinary coffee experience earned them a following not only in their home town, but globally.

La Carba follows a strict method to select their best beans. They scour through hundreds of varieties each year to find the ones that best meet their ideals. Then they roast them in a light manner before dialing them in to achieve their desired flavor profile. This results in an enhanced taste and clarity.

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

The shop employs a La Marzocco Modbar and the cups plates and bowls are designed by Wurtz ceramics, a father-and-son studio located in Horsens. In a recent Q&A session with Atlanta Coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves around 250 different types of coffees each year, and typically has seven or eight varieties on offer at any given point.

The Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant is the only multi-unit coffee retailer that roasts on-site and brews according to your preferences, with every cup of coffee being roasted and brewed to your specifications in less than minutes. It searches far and wide for the highest-grade, directly sourced specialty beans that offer customers a variety and quality.

Their on-site roaster utilizes fluid bed technology, which is a bit different to the drum-type machines commonly found in the majority of UK coffee houses. The beans are blown around an enclosed box heated by high-speed air that keeps the beans suspended and allows them to be roasted at a consistent rate when they pass through the machine.

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

The coffee is then be whisked into the store's Eversys Super-Automatic Brewing Machines and brewed according your preferences in less than one minute. Customers can choose from nine single origins and several blends.

Parlor Coffee

It was founded in 2012 in the back of a barbershop equipped with a single-group espresso machine, Parlor Coffee has become a burgeoning roastery whose beans are available at top cafes, restaurants and home brewers all over the city. Parlor is dedicated to procuring high-quality coffee beans from across the globe, each of which has had to endure a lengthy journey before arriving in the hands of its roasters.

The owners, who are self-described as "passionate about the craft and believe that a good cup of coffee should be accessible to everyone," have created a environment that is simple, with chalkboards, compost bins, recycled handmade products, and a minimalist interior.

They medium roast coffee beans their own blends (there were six at the time I was there) and single-origins, but 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 ground beans. They vary from earthy to chocolatey (one was similar to tomato!). It's a bit off the beaten track, but it's worth the drive.