Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a lover of coffee then you'll want to try out the coffee shop. These shops offer a broad 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 coffee beans in bulk at their retail locations.

Porto Rico Importing Co.

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

When you walk into this old-school West Village shop, the smell of fresh coffee beans fills your nostrils. The shelves are packed with jars, sacks and dark brown beans, along with tea-making equipment, coffee accessories and sugar.

Porto Rico, originally opened in 1907 by Italian immigrant Patsy Albonese. Greenwich Village at the time was witnessing an influx of Italian immigrants, who established businesses in order to meet their food requirements. Albanese named the shop after the famous Puerto Rican Coffee she imported and sold - a drink that was so well-known in the moment that the Pope would drink it.

Today, Porto Rico sells 130 varieties of beans from all over 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 offers wholesale distribution for 350 restaurants in NYC, Brooklyn and Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, the current president and owner of the company was raised on the top floor of the bakery of his family on Bleecker Street where his father was the owner of Porto Rico. He still runs 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 an espresso bar and a coffee roaster. Co-founders Tobin Polk and Lance Schnorenberg, both 33 started roasting in the fourth-floor loft across the street from their new location 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 beans London 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 the peak of ripeness, and floated to remove any defects. They were then dried on the farm following a 36-hour dry fermentation. The result is a coffee that is fragrant with hints of the melon and berry.

Sey's focus on holistically improving the well-being of employees, customers and growers extends beyond the retail store. It makes use of composts and biodegradable disposables to ensure that waste is kept out of the landfills. This helps reduce greenhouse gases and nourish the soil. It also prevents gratuities. This lets baristas concentrate on their work and support their livelihoods.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty coffee brand, was founded in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. The company began with a small store and a team of dedicated employees. Their honest and innovative approach to providing an exceptional coffee experience earned their acclaim not just in their home town but all over the world.

La Carba has a rigorous process for finding their perfect beans, by scouring through hundreds of different varieties every year to locate the ones that fit their ideals. They then roast them very 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, 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 plates and cups are custom-designed at Wurtz ceramics in Horsens, the son and father studio. 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 time.

The Plant Coffee Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant is the only multi-unit coffee retailer that roasts on site and brews according to your preferences, with each cup of coffee being roasted and brewed to your specifications in less than minutes. It searches far and far for the finest quality, directly sourced specialty beans that provide customers with a choice and high-quality.

The on-site roaster employs fluid bed technology, which is quite different from traditional drum-type machines found in many UK coffee houses. The beans are blown around an enclosed box heated by high-speed air which keeps the beans suspended and allows roasting to happen at a consistent rate throughout the machine.

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

The coffee beans for sale that has been roasted is whisked to the store's Eversys brewing machines that are super-automatic and can be you can have your coffee brewed to your specifications within less than a minute. Customers can choose from nine single origin selections and a variety of blends.

Parlor Coffee

In 2012, the company was established in the back of a barbershop equipped with a single-group espresso machine, Parlor Coffee has become a rapidly growing roastery whose beans are found at great cafes, restaurants and home brewers in the city. Parlor is dedicated to sourcing the highest-quality beans across the globe each of which is a long, arduous journey before it reaches the roasters.

According to their own words the owners "have an unrelenting love of craft and a belief that great coffee should be available to anyone." They accomplish that with their down-to-earth street space, which includes compost bins, chalkboard welcome, handmade up-cycled products and low-frills deco.

They roast their own blends (there were six at the time I was there) and single-origins. However, they also have cuppings on Sundays that are accessible to the public. Imagine it as an artisanal tasting room in which you can smell and taste the ground beans, ranging from chocolaty to earthy (one was almost tomato-like!). They're a bit off the beaten path and it's worth the trip.