Keira Estevez

Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a lover of coffee, then you will want to visit a coffee bean shop. These shops offer a broad variety of beans that are whole from all over the world. These stores also sell unique trinkets, kitchenware and other products.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee shop that is a specialist in international brews, loose teas, and a wide selection.

The scent of freshly roasted beans fills the air once you walk into this West Village shop. The shelves are stacked with jars, sacks and dark brown beans, along with tea-making equipment, coffee beans unroasted accessories and sugar.

The first restaurant opened in 1907, Porto Rico was founded by Italian immigrants Patsy Albanese. At the time, Greenwich Village was seeing an increasing number of Italian immigrants who set up 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 at the moment, even the Pope would drink 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. Porto Rico roasts their own beans and provides wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC, Brooklyn and Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, the current owner and president of the company, grew up above his family's bakery located on Bleecker Street where his father was the owner of Porto Rico. He still runs the shop in a similar way as 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 the fourth-floor loft just around the corner from their new shop in 2011 under the name Lofted Coffee (with local clients including Greenpoint's Budin and Soho cart service Peddler).

Sey's focus on purchasing micro-lots, or even whole harvests from a single farmer has been praised by the most discerning New York City coffee aficionados. In 2011, Sey purchased a six-bag micro lot of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai, a Brazilian coffee from the Espirito-Santo region. The beans were harvested at their peak of ripeness 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 melons and berries.

Sey's commitment goes beyond its shop to improve the overall wellbeing of growers and staff, as well as customers. It utilizes biodegradable disposables as well as composts, preventing waste from garbage and converting it into agents that reduce harmful greenhouse gases and nourish soil. It also eliminates gratuity, which puts baristas into a position to provide their livelihoods and motivate them to focus on their art.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty-coffee company, was founded in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. It started with a small shop and a dedicated staff. Their innovative and honest approach to providing a superior coffee experience has earned them a loyal following, not just in their hometown but also around the world.

La Carba has a rigorous process to find their perfect beans, by scouring through hundreds of different lots each year to identify the ones that fit their ideals. They roast them lightly, adjusting their desired flavor profile. This results in an enhanced taste and clarity.

The East Village store, which was opened in October of last year, has been praised for its high-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 establishments.

The shop uses a La Marzocco modbar, and the plates and cups are designed specifically for 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 coffees per day and usually has seven or eight different varieties available at any one time.

The Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant A multi-unit coffee retailer roasts and brews coffee on-site. Each cup is brewed and roasted according to your specifications within less than one second. It searches countries far and across the globe for the highest rated coffee beans-quality specialty beans that are directly sourced that offer customers a variety and quality.

Their onsite roaster uses fluid bed technology which is quite different from the classic drum-type machines used in most UK coffee shops. The beans are blown inside a heated container with high-speed, circulating air. This keeps the beans in suspension and allows for a constant roasting speed.

I tried the Sumatran coffee and it was rich with smooth mouthfeel, dark chocolate aroma was evident and the coffee began to cool while you sipped, subtle flavours of citrus fruit were detected.

The roasted coffee is then whisked to the Eversys super-automatic brewing machines and you can have your coffee brewed to your specifications in less than a minute. Customers can select from nine single origins as well as various blends.

Parlor Coffee

Parlor Coffee was founded in 2012 in a barbershop with a single group espresso machine. It has since evolved into a burgeoning coffee roastery, and its beans are sold in top cafes restaurants, cafes, and home brewers across the city. Parlor Coffee is dedicated to sourcing only the finest quality beans, which have gone through a long journey before arriving at its roasters.

In their own words in their own words, they "have an unstoppable passion for craft and a belief that good coffee should be available to everyone." They do just this by putting their home-like streetscape that is a mix of residential and commercial. Think compost bins, chalkboard welcome hand-made up-cycled goods, and low-frills deco.

They roast their own blends (there were six when I was there) and single-origins. But they also host cuppings on Sundays, which are accessible to the public. Think of it as a tasting room for breweries. You can smell and taste the beans, ranging from chocolaty to earthy (one was very tomato-like!). They're away from the main roads, but worthwhile to visit.