Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a coffee enthusiast, you should consider visiting a speciality coffee beans shop. They offer a wide selection of whole beans from all across the globe. They also have unique kitchenware and trinkets.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

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

When you enter this traditional West Village shop, the scent of freshly coffee beans fills your nostrils. The shelves are lined with jars, sacks and dark brown beans, with coffee-making equipment, tea accessories, and sugar.

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 serve their culinary requirements. Albanese named the shop after the popular Puerto Rican coffee beans for sale she imported and sold - a beverage that was so well-known that at the time, even the Pope would drink 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 roasts its own beans and offers wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC, Brooklyn and Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, current owner and president, was raised in the family bakery located on Bleecker Street, where his father ran Porto Rico. He still runs the shop in the same way to his father and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

Sey Coffee, a coffee roaster and shop, is located along Grattan Street, in Morgantown. This Brooklyn neighborhood, in the Bushwick district is situated on Grattan Street. Co-founders Tobin Polk and Lance Schnorenberg, both 33 began roasting in a fourth-floor loft around the corner from their new store in 2011 under the name Lofted Coffee (with local clients including Greenpoint's Budin and Soho cart service Peddler).

Sey's focus on buying micro-lots, and even whole harvests from single farmers 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 handpicked at peak ripeness, floated to eliminate any defects, then dry fermented for a period of 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a blend that is a little fruit and melon.

Sey's focus on holistically improving the quality of life for staff, growers and customers extends beyond the store. It makes use of composts and biodegradable products to keep waste out of the landfills. This helps reduce greenhouse gases and helps nourish the soil. It also eliminates gratuity, which puts the baristas in a position to help sustain their livelihoods as well as encourage them to focus on their profession.

La Cabra

La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee brand that was established in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. They began with a small shop and a dedicated staff. Their honest and innovative approach to delivering an extraordinary coffee experience earned their acclaim not just in their hometown but all over the world.

La Carba has a rigorous process for finding their perfect beans, searching through hundreds of different varieties every year to locate the ones that are perfect for their tastes. Then they roast them in a light style and dial the roast to create their desired flavor profile. This gives their coffees an enhanced taste and clarity.

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

The shop uses the La Marzocco modbar, and the cups and plates are designed specifically for 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 about 250 different coffees a year, and typically 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 brewed and roasted according to your requirements in less than seconds. It searches the world for the highest quality specialty beans that are sourced directly to give customers the option of the choice and quality.

The roaster they have on site is a fluid bed machine, which is different from classic drum machines used in UK coffee beans bulk buy shops. The beans are blown inside the heated box using high-speed air that is circulated. This keeps the beans suspended and ensures a consistent roasting rate.

I tried the Sumatran coffee and it was rich with velvety mouthfeel. Dark chocolate scent was present. The coffee began to cool while you sipped delicate citrus flavours fruit were evident.

The roasted expensive coffee beans will be poured into the Eversys Super-Automatic Brewing Machines, and brewed to your specifications in less than a minute. Customers can choose from nine single origins as well as several blends.

Parlor Coffee

In 2012, the company was established in the back of a barbershop with one espresso machine in a single group, Parlor coffee bean company has become a rapidly growing roastery whose beans are available at top restaurants, cafes and home brewers in the city. Parlor Coffee is committed to finding the highest quality beans that have been through a lengthy journey before arriving at its roasters.

According to their own words, they "have an unrelenting love of craft and a belief that good coffee should be available to everyone." They do just that by creating a simple streetscape that is a mix of residential and commercial. Think compost bins, chalkboards hand-made up-cycled goods, and low-frills deco.

They roast and brew their own blends and single-origins (there were six while I was there) Also, they offer cuppings on Sundays, which are open to the public. Imagine it as a brewery tasting area--you can taste and smell the ground beans. They vary from earthy to chocolatey (one was almost like tomato!). It's a little off the beaten path but worth the journey.