Five Brooklyn gourmet coffee beans Bean Shops

If you're a fan of coffee then you'll want to try out the coffee shop. These shops offer a variety of whole beans from all over the world. They also sell unique kitchenware and trinkets.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

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

As you enter this old-fashioned West Village shop, the aroma of freshly roasted beans fills your nose. Open bags of dark-brown beans are displayed on the shelves alongside sugar jars, coffee-making equipment and tea accessories.

The first restaurant opened in 1907, Porto Rico was founded by Italian immigrant Patsy Albanese. Greenwich Village at the time was witnessing a surge of Italian immigrants, who had opened businesses to meet their dietary needs. Albanese named her shop after the popular Puerto Rican coffee she imported (and sold) - a beverage so popular that even the Pope took a sip.

Today, Porto Rico sells 130 varieties of beans from all over the globe at three locations in New York City including their Bleecker Street location, Essex Market and online. Porto Rico also roasts its own beans and offers wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC and Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, current owner and president, grew up in the family bakery on Bleecker Street, where his father was the owner of Porto Rico. He still runs the shop in a similar manner as his father and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

Located along Grattan Street in Morgantown, Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, Sey Coffee is both an espresso bar and a coffee 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 the year 2011. They dubbed it Lofted Coffee. Local clients included Greenpoint's Budin and Soho cart services Peddler and Peddler.

Sey's reliance on micro-lots -- or even whole harvests from single farmers earned it the acclaim of discerning New York City coffee beans bulk buy aficionados. Last year they made a six-bag micro-lot purchase of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai 785 from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The beans were picked when they were ripe and then floated to eliminate any imperfections. They were then dried on the farm after a 36-hour dry fermentation. The result is a cup with hints of fruit and melon.

Sey's mission extends beyond the shop to improve the overall health of growers and staff, as well as its customers. It makes use of biodegradable disposables and composts, keeping waste out of garbage and converting it into substances that reduce harmful greenhouse gases and enrich the soil. It also does away with gratuity, a move that places baristas in the position to sustain their livelihoods and motivate them to concentrate on their art.

La Cabra

La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee company founded in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. It began with a tiny store and a committed staff. Their innovative and honest approach to providing an exceptional coffee experience has earned them a loyal following not only in their own town but all over the world.

La Carba has a rigorous process for finding their perfect beans, going through hundreds of different lots every year to locate the ones that are perfect for their tastes. They roast them lightly, dialing in their desired flavor profile. This gives their coffees clearer and more vibrant taste.

The East Village store opened last October with a sleek and minimalist design. It's been praised by international coffee aficionados for its exacting pour-overs and baked goods supervised by head baker Jared Sexton, who's previously worked at Bien Cuit and Dominique Ansel.

The shop employs the La Marzocco modbar and the cups and plates are made by Wurtz ceramics in Horsens, an artist-run by a father and son. In a recent interview with Atlanta Coffee Shops General Manager Ian Walla revealed that La Cabra serves 250 different types of coffee per day and has typically seven or eight varieties on offer at any given time.

The Plant Coffee Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant is the only multi-unit coffee retailer that roasts its own coffee and brews on demand, with every cup of coffee being roasted and brewed to your specifications in less than a minute. It searches the globe for the highest quality specialty beans that are sourced directly, giving customers the choice and quality.

Their onsite roaster uses fluid bed technology which is a bit different to the classic drum-type machines used in many UK coffee houses. The beans are blown around in an enclosed box heated by high-speed air that keeps the green beans in suspension and allows them to be roasted at a consistent rate as they move through the machine.

I tried the Sumatran coffee and it was a rich cup with smooth mouthfeel, dark chocolate from the fragrance was present, and the coffee began to cool while you sipped and subtle aromas of citrus fruit were detected.

The roasted coffee will then be whisked into the store's Eversys Super-Automatic brewing Machines and brewed according your specifications within less than a minute. Customers can select from a variety of single origins and a variety of blends.

Parlor Coffee

Parlor Coffee was founded in 2012 in a barbershop equipped with a single group espresso machine. It has since developed to become a burgeoning roastery, whose beans can be found in great cafes, restaurants, and home brewers throughout the city. Parlor Coffee is committed to finding the highest-quality beans, which have gone through a long journey before they reach its roasters.

The owners, who are self-described as "passionate about their craft and believe that a good coffee beans cup of coffee should be accessible to everyone," have created a space that is down-to earth and has chalkboards, compost bins and up-cycled products, and low-frills decor.

They roast their own blends (there were six at the time I was there) and single-origins. However, they also hold cuppings on Sundays that are open to the general public. Imagine it as a brewery tasting room--you can smell and taste the beans, ranging from chocolaty earthy (one was almost tomato-like!). They're away from the tourist trail, but well worth a trip.