Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a fan of coffee, then you will want to go to a coffee bean shop. These shops provide a variety of whole beans from all over the globe. They also sell exclusive trinkets, kitchenware and other items.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

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

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

Porto Rico, originally opened in 1907 by Italian immigrant Patsy Albonese. At the time, Greenwich Village was seeing an influx of Italian immigrants who set up businesses to meet their culinary needs. Albanese named her shop after the famous Puerto Rican coffee bean company she imported (and sold) - a beverage so popular that even the Pope drank 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. The company also roasts their own beans and provides wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC, Brooklyn and Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, current owner and president, grew up in the family bakery on Bleecker Street, where his father ran Porto Rico. He continues to operate the shop in the same way to 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. Co-founders Tobin Polk and Lance Schnorenberg, both 33 started roasting in a 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 preference for micro-lots or even whole harvests from single farmers been praised by highly discerning New York City coffee aficionados. Last year they made a six-bag micro-lot purchase of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai 785 from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The coffeee beans were carefully picked at peak ripeness, floated to eliminate any defects and dried fermented for about 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a blend with hints of berry, lemongrass and melon.

Sey's focus on holistically improving the quality of life for staff, growers and customers extends beyond the store. It uses composts and biodegradable plastics to keep waste out of the garbage dumps. This helps reduce greenhouse gases and helps nourish the soil. It also does away with gratuity, a move that puts the baristas in a position to sustain their livelihoods and encourage them to concentrate on their art.

La Cabra

La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee beans coffee company that was founded in Aarhus, 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 own town but also around the world.

La Carba follows a strict method to select their best beans. They scour through hundreds of varieties each year in order to find beans that match their ideals. Then they roast them in a very light style, dialing them in to achieve their desired flavor profile. This gives the coffees a more vibrant flavor and clarity.

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

The shop employs a La Marzocco Modbar and the cups, plates and bowls are designed by Wurtz ceramics, a father-and-son studio located in Horsens. In a recent Q&A interview with Atlanta Coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves approximately 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 coffee retailer, roasts and brews the coffee on site. Each cup is roasted and brewed according to your specifications in less than a second. It scour countries far and wide for the highest rated coffee beans-grade specialty beans, which are directly sourced, offering customers choice and high-quality.

The on-site roaster employs fluid bed technology that is quite different from the drum-type machines that are commonly used in the majority of UK coffee houses. The beans are blown around a heated container by high-speed air, which keeps the beans suspended and allows roasting to happen in a steady manner when they pass through the machine.

I tried the Sumatran Coffee and it was rich and velvety with a velvety taste. Dark chocolate was evident from the aroma, and as you sip the coffee you could taste subtle citrus fruit flavors.

The coffee is then be poured into the store's Eversys Super-Automatic Brewing Machines to be brewed according your specifications within less than a minute. Customers can pick from nine single origin selections and a wide range of blends.

Parlor Coffee

The company was founded in 2012 at the back of a barbershop that had one espresso machine in a single group, Parlor Coffee has become a growing roastery, whose beans can be found in top cafes, restaurants and home brewers across the city. Parlor is dedicated to sourcing the highest-quality beans across the globe, each of which has been through a long and difficult journey before getting into the roasters.

In their own words in their own words, they "have an unstoppable passion for craft and a belief that good coffee should be accessible to anyone." They achieve that by creating a simple space on a residential street--think compost bins, a chalkboard welcome, handmade up-cycled products and a simple deco.

They roast their own blends (there were six when I was there) and single-origins. However, they also host cuppings on Sundays, which are accessible to the public. Think of it as the tasting room of a brewery. You can smell and taste the ground beans, from chocolatey to earthy (one was very tomato-like!). It's a bit away from the main roads, but worth the journey.