Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a coffee connoisseur and you're looking for a place to shop, then you'll need to check out a coffee bean shop. These shops provide a variety of whole beans from all over the globe. They also offer unique kitchenware and trinkets.

Some of these shops offer subscriptions to their coffee beans. Others offer large quantities of coffee beans at their retail stores.

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee shop that specializes in international brews and a selection of loose teas

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

Porto Rico, originally opened in 1907 by Italian immigrants Patsy Albonese. At the time, Greenwich Village was seeing an large influx of Italian immigrants who opened businesses to cater to their culinary requirements. Albanese named the shop after the famous Puerto Rican Coffee she imported and sold - a beverage that was so well-known in the present, that even the Pope would drink it.

Porto Rico offers 130 different varieties of beans, including those from around the world located in three locations including Bleecker Street, Essex Market, and online coffee beans. Porto Rico roasts its own beans and provides 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. The owner continues to run the business in the same manner like his father and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

The shop 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 of 33 years, began roasting coffee in a loft on the fourth floor just across the street, in 2011. They called it Lofted Coffee. 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 single farmers--has earned it the respect of discerning New York City coffee aficionados. In the past they made a 6-bag micro-lot purchase of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai 785 from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The beans were harvested at their peak of ripeness and steamed to remove any defects. They were then dried on the farm after a 36-hour dry fermentation. The result is a cup that is fragrant with hints of berry and melon.

Sey's commitment goes beyond its shop to improve the overall well-being of growers and staff, and customers. It utilizes biodegradable disposables as well as composts to keep waste out of the landfill and converting it into substances that reduce harmful greenhouse gases as well as nourish soil. It also eliminates gratuity. This allows baristas to focus on their craft and to earn a living.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty-coffee beans delivery company, was founded in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. They started with a small store and a committed staff. Their innovative and honest method of providing an exceptional coffee experience has earned them a loyal fan base not just in their hometown but all over the world.

La Carba follows a strict procedure to identify their ideal beans. They go through hundreds of lots each year to select the beans that best fit their ideals. They then roast them very lightly, adjusting their desired flavor profile. This results in a brighter taste and clarity.

The East Village store, which opened in October last year and has been praised by critics for its premium pour-overs and baked goods that are overseen by Jared Sexton. He previously worked at Bien Cuit, Dominique Ansel and other coffee establishments.

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

The Roasting Plant Coffee

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

Their onsite roaster uses fluid bed technology that is quite different from traditional drum-type machines found in the majority of UK coffee shops. The beans are blown about in a heated box by high-velocity air, which keeps the beans in a suspended state and allows roasting to happen in a steady manner as they travel through the machine.

I tried the Sumatran Coffee and it was smooth and rich with a smooth taste. Dark chocolate was evident in the aroma, and as you sip the coffee you could smell subtle citrus fruit aromas.

The roasted coffee will be taken to the store's Eversys Super-Automatic Brewing Machines and brewed according your preferences in less than a minute. Customers can select from nine single origins as well as various blends.

Parlor Coffee

The company was founded in 2012 at the back of a barbershop that had a single-group espresso machine, Parlor Coffee has become an energizing roastery whose coffees are found at great cafes, restaurants and home brewers in the city. Parlor is dedicated to procuring high-quality coffee beans online beans from all over the world Each one is a long, arduous journey before reaching the hands of its roasters.

In their own words the owners "have an unrelenting passion for craft and a conviction that good coffee should be accessible to everyone." They achieve this by putting their home-like space on a residential street--think compost bins, a chalkboard welcome hand-made up-cycled goods, and a minimalist deco.

They roast their own blends (there were six at the time I was there) and single-origins, but they also hold cuppings on Sundays that are open to the public. Imagine it as a brewery tasting area where you can taste and smell the beans as they are roasted. They are a mix of earthy and chocolate (one was almost like tomato!). It's a little off the beaten track, but it's worth the drive.