Mathew Deshotel

Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you are an avid coffee drinker, you should go to a coffee shop. These shops offer a variety of whole beans from all over the globe. They also offer unique trinkets and kitchenware.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee vendor specializing in international brews and a variety of loose teas

The aroma of freshly roasted beans fills the air when you walk into this West Village shop. The sacks of dark roast coffee beans brown beans are displayed on the shelves alongside jars of sugar coffee-making equipment, tea and other accessories.

Originally 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 opened businesses to cater to their culinary needs. Albanese named the shop after the famous 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 coffee beans. The company roasts its own beans and offers wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC and Brooklyn.

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

Sey Coffee

The shop is located along Grattan Street in Morgantown, Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, Sey Coffee is both an espresso bar and a coffee roaster. Co-founders Tobin Polk and Lance Schnorenberg, both 33 started roasting in a fourth-floor loft just around the corner 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 buying micro-lots, or even whole harvests from single farmers has earned it the praise of New York City coffee enthusiasts. Last year, they made a six-bag micro-lot purchase of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai 785 from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The beans were picked at peak ripeness and removed by flotation to eliminate defects and then dried fermented for 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a cup that has hints of melons and berries.

Sey's dedication extends beyond its shop to improve the overall wellbeing of employees and growers as well as its customers. It makes use of biodegradable plastics and composts, preventing waste from landfills and turning it into substances that help reduce harmful greenhouse gases and enrich the soil. It also reduces gratuity. This lets baristas concentrate on their craft and help sustain their livelihoods.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty-coffee company, was founded in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. It began with a tiny shop and a committed team. Their innovative and honest approach to providing an exceptional coffee experience has earned them a loyal fan base not just in their local area but also around the world.

La Carba has a rigorous method of identifying their ideal beans, searching through hundreds of different lots every year to locate the ones that match their ideals. They then roast them very lightly, dialing in their desired flavor profile. This gives their coffees more clarity and a better taste.

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

The shop is equipped with the La Marzocco Modbar as well as the cups, plates and bowls are designed by Wurtz ceramics, a father and son studio in Horsens. In a recent interview with Atlanta coffee bean coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves about 250 different coffees per year, and usually has seven or eight coffees available at any given point.

The Plant Coffee Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant is the only multi-unit retailer of coffee that roasts its own coffee and brews on demand, with every cup of coffee roasting and brewed to your specifications in less than minutes. It is a search engine for the highest quality specialty beans that are sourced directly offering customers a choice and quality.

Their on-site roaster is a fluid bed machine that is distinct from the traditional drum machines found in UK coffee shops. The beans are blown around in an enclosed box heated by high-speed air that keeps the green beans in suspension and allows roasting to happen at a consistent rate as they travel through the machine.

I tried the Sumatran coffee and it was delicious with a velvety mouthfeel. Dark chocolate scent was evident and the coffee began to cool down as you sipped delicate citrus flavours fruit were evident.

The roasted coffee will then be taken to the store's Eversys Super-Automatic Brewing Machines and brewed according your specifications in under a minute. Customers can pick from nine single origin selections and a wide range of blends.

Parlor Coffee

It was founded in 2012 in the back of a barbershop, complete with an espresso machine that was single-group, Parlor Coffee has become a burgeoning roastery whose beans can be found in top cafes, restaurants and home brewers in the city. Parlor Coffee is dedicated to sourcing only the highest-quality beans, which have been through a lengthy journey before reaching its roasters.

The owners, who self-described as "passionate about coffee and believe that a good coffee beans - mouse click on Trade Britanica, cup of coffee should be accessible to all," have created a place that is a bit more grounded, with chalkboards, compost bins, up-cycled handmade items, and simple decor.

They roast and create their own blends as well as single-origins (there were six at the time I was there) They also do cuppings Sundays, which are open to the public. Imagine it as a brewery tasting room--you can smell and taste the beans, from chocolatey to earthy (one was almost tomato-like!). They're off the beaten path, but worthwhile to visit.