Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a coffee lover, then you will want to go to a coffee bean shop. These shops provide a variety of whole beans from around the world. They also sell unique trinkets and kitchenware.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee retailer specializing international brews, as well as a variety of loose teas

The scent of freshly roasting beans fills the air as you walk into this West Village shop. The shelves are lined with jars and bags of dark brown coffeee beans, along with coffee-making equipment, tea accessories, and sugar.

The first restaurant opened in 1907, Porto Rico was founded by Italian immigrant Patsy Albanese. At the time, Greenwich Village was seeing an large influx of Italian immigrants who set up businesses to cater to 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 consumed it.

Porto Rico offers 130 different varieties of beans, including those from around the globe in three locations, including Bleecker Street, Essex Market, and online. Porto Rico roasts its own beans and provides wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC and Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, the current owner and president of the business was raised on the top floor of his family's bakery located on Bleecker Street where his father was the owner of Porto Rico. He runs the business 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. Tobin Polk, Lance Schnorenberg and their co-founders, who are 33 years old, started roasting coffee in an apartment on the fourth floor just across the street, in the year 2011. They dubbed 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 single farmers been praised by knowledgeable New York City coffee aficionados. In 2011, Sey purchased a six-bag micro lot of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai from Brazil's Espirito Santa region. The beans were carefully picked at peak ripeness and removed by flotation to eliminate defects and dried fermented for about 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a cup with hints of berry melon and lemongrass.

Sey's focus on holistically improving the wellbeing of staff, growers and customers extends beyond the shop. It makes use of biodegradable disposables and composts, preventing waste from landfills and converting it to substances that reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions and feed the soil. It also does away with gratuity, which puts baristas in a position to sustain their livelihoods and encourage them to focus on their profession.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty coffee company, was established in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. The company began with a small shop and a dedicated staff. Their honesty and ingenuity to providing an exceptional coffee experience has earned their acclaim not just in their home town, but globally.

La Carba follows a strict procedure to find their perfect beans. They search through hundreds of beans each year in order to select the beans that best match their ideals. They then roast them very lightly, adjusting their desired flavor profile. This gives the coffees a greater clarity and a more vibrant taste.

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

The shop utilizes the La Marzocco modbar and The Coffee Bean Shop plates and cups are custom-designed at Wurtz ceramics in Horsens, which is a father-son studio. In a recent Q&A with Atlanta Coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves around 250 different coffees a year, and usually has seven or eight different varieties available at any given time.

The Plant Coffee Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant A multi-unit retailer of coffee, roasts and brews coffee on-site. Each cup is brewed and roasted according to your specifications within less than seconds. It searches the world for the finest specialty beans that are directly sourced to give customers the option of choice and quality.

The on-site roaster employs fluid bed technology which is quite different from the drum-type machines that are commonly used in most UK coffee shops. The beans are blown inside a heated container with high-speed air, which is circulated. This keeps the beans suspended and ensures a consistent roasting speed.

I tried the Sumatran Coffee and it was incredibly rich and velvety with a velvety taste. Dark chocolate was evident in the aroma. And as you sip the coffee, there were subtle citrus fruit flavors.

The coffee that has been roasted is transported to the store's Eversys super-automatic brewing machines and it is brewed to your requirements in less than a minute. Customers can select from nine single origin selections and a wide range of blends.

Parlor Coffee

Founded in 2012 in the back of a barbershop, complete with one espresso machine in a single group, Parlor Coffee has become a growing roastery, whose beans are sold at top restaurants, cafes and home brewers across the city. Parlor is committed to procuring high-quality coffee beans from across the globe each of which has had to endure a lengthy journey before it reaches the roasters.

According to their own words in their own words, they "have a relentless passion for craft and believe that good coffee should be accessible to anyone." They achieve that with their down-to-earth area on a residential street. Think compost bins, a chalkboard welcome handmade up-cycled items, and a minimalist deco.

They roast and create their own blends as well as single-origins (there were six when I was there), but they also do cuppings Sundays, which are open to the public. Think of it like a brewery tasting room--you can smell and taste the ground beans, from chocolaty to earthy (one was very tomato-like!). They're away from the tourist trail but are well worth a trip.