Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're an avid coffee drinker, you must visit a coffee shop. These shops provide a variety of whole beans from all over the world. These stores also offer unique trinkets, kitchenware and other products.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee seller that specializes in international brews, loose teas and a selection.

The scent of freshly roasting beans fills the air as you enter this West Village shop. The sacks of dark brown beans are displayed on the shelves alongside sugar jars, coffee-making equipment as well as tea accessories.

The first restaurant opened in 1907, Porto Rico was founded by Italian immigrants Patsy Albanese. Greenwich Village at the time was witnessing a surge of Italian immigrants, who established businesses to meet their dietary needs. Albanese named the shop after the popular Puerto Rican Coffee she imported and sold - a beverage that was so renowned that at the time, even the Pope would drink 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. The company also roasts their own beans and offers wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC, Brooklyn and Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, the current owner and president of the business was raised above his family's bakery on Bleecker Street where his father was the owner of Porto Rico. He continues to run the shop in the same manner as his father and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

The shop is located along Grattan Street in Morgantown, Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, Sey Coffee is both a most expensive coffee beans shop and roaster. Tobin Polk, Lance Schnorenberg and their co-founders, who are 33 years old, started roasting coffee in a loft on the fourth floor, just across the street in the year 2011. They called it Lofted Coffee. Local clients included Greenpoint's Budin, and Soho cart services Peddler and Peddler.

Sey's commitment to buying micro-lots, and even whole harvests, from farmers who are one has earned it the respect of New York City coffee enthusiasts. 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 picked at peak ripeness, floated to remove defects and dried fermented for 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a cup with hints of berry, lemongrass and melon.

Sey's dedication extends beyond its shop to improve the overall wellbeing of growers and staff, as well as customers. It uses biodegradable disposables and composts, preventing waste from the landfill and converting it into agents that lower harmful greenhouse gases and enrich the soil. It also does away with gratuity, which puts baristas into a position to sustain their livelihoods and encourage them to focus on their art.

La Cabra

La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee beans coffee company founded in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. It began with a tiny shop and a committed team. Their honest and innovative approach to delivering an extraordinary coffee experience earned them a following that was not only in their own town but all over the world.

La Carba follows a strict method to select their best beans. They scour through hundreds of varieties every year to find the ones that best meet their standards. Then they roast them in a very light roast coffee beans style before dialing the roast to create their desired flavor profile. This gives the coffees a more vibrant taste and clarity.

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

The shop utilizes a La Marzocco Modbar as well as the cups, plates and bowls are made by Wurtz ceramics, a father-and-son studio located in Horsens. In a recent Q&A with Atlanta Coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves around 250 different coffees per year, and usually has seven or eight varieties available at any given point.

The Roasting Plant Coffee

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

Their onsite roaster is a fluid bed device, which is different from traditional drum machines that are used in UK coffee shops. The beans are blown around in a heated container by high-speed air that keeps the green beans in suspension and allows roasting to happen at a consistent rate throughout the machine.

I tried the Sumatran coffee and it was a rich cup with velvety mouthfeel. Dark chocolate scent was present. The coffee began to cool down as you sipped and subtle aromas of citrus fruit were evident.

The roasted coffee will be poured into the Eversys Super-Automatic Brewing Machines and brewed according to your specifications within less than a minute. Customers can choose from a selection of nine single origin choices and a wide range of blends.

Parlor Coffee

It was founded in 2012 in the back of a barbershop with a single-group espresso machine, Parlor Coffee has become a growing roastery, whose beans are available at top restaurants, cafes and home brewers across the city. Parlor is committed to sourcing the highest-quality beans around the globe, each of which has endured a laborious journey before getting into the roasters.

According to their own words the owners "have an unrelenting passion for craft and a belief that good coffee should be available to everyone." They accomplish that by creating a simple space on a residential street--think compost bins, chalkboards handmade up-cycled items, and low-frills deco.

They roast and brew their own blends and single-origins (there were six on the menu when I was there), but they also do cuppings Sundays, which are open to the public. Imagine it as a brewery tasting room, where you can smell and taste the beans that are ground. They vary from earthy to chocolaty (one was similar to tomato!). They're away from the main roads but are it's worth the trip.