Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're an avid organic coffee beans drinker, you should go to a coffee shop. They offer a wide selection of whole beans from around the world. They also offer unique kitchenware and trinkets.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee seller who is a specialist in international brews, loose teas and a selection.

The aroma of freshly roasted beans fills the air once you enter this West Village shop. The shelves are stacked with jars and bags of 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 famous Puerto Rican Coffee she imported and sold - a drink that was so famous in the present, that even the Pope would drink it.

Porto Rico offers 130 different varieties of beans, which includes those from around the world located in three locations including Bleecker Street, Essex Market, and online. Porto Rico roasts their own beans and offers wholesale distribution for 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 was the owner of Porto Rico. The owner continues to run the business in the same way as his grandfather and father.

Sey Coffee

Located along Grattan Street in Morgantown, Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, Sey Coffee is both a cafe and a roaster. Tobin Polk, Lance Schnorenberg and their co-founders, who are 33 years old, started roasting coffee in an apartment on the fourth floor just around the corner in the year 2011. They called it Lofted Coffee. Local clients included Greenpoint's Budin and Soho cart services Peddler and Peddler.

Sey's focus on purchasing micro-lots, or even whole harvests from single farmers been praised by the most discerning New York City coffee aficionados. In 2011, Sey purchased a six-bag micro lot of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai from Brazil's Espirito Santa region. The beans were harvested when they were ripe and floated to remove any defects. They were then dried on the farm after a 36-hour dry fermentation. The result is a cup with hints of berry, lemongrass, and melon.

Sey's focus on holistically improving the wellbeing of staff, growers and customers extends beyond the retail store. It makes use of biodegradable plastics and composts to keep waste out of landfills and turning it into agents that lower harmful greenhouse gases as well as nourish soil. It also does away with gratuity, which puts the baristas in a position to help sustain their livelihoods and motivate them to concentrate on their craft.

La Cabra

La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee company founded in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. It started with a small shop and a dedicated team. Their honest and creative approach to delivering a truly exceptional coffee experience has earned them a following that was not only in their home town but also around the world.

La Carba has a rigorous process to find their perfect beans, searching through hundreds of different varieties every year to find ones that meet their standards. They roast them in a light style and dial them in to achieve their desired flavor profile. This gives their coffees more clarity and a better taste.

The East Village store opened last October with a sleek and minimalist design. It's been praised by international coffee lovers for its precise pour overs and baked goods that are overseen 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 custom-designed at Wurtz ceramics in Horsens, a father and son studio. In a recent Q&A with Atlanta Coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves about 250 different coffees per year, and typically has seven or eight varieties available at any given moment.

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 preferences in less than seconds. It searches the globe for the finest specialty beans that are sourced directly, giving customers choices and high-quality.

Their on-site roaster utilizes fluid bed technology, which is a bit different to the classic drum-type machines used in the majority of UK coffee houses. The beans are blown into a heated container with high-speed and circulating air. This keeps the beans in suspension and ensures a consistent roasting speed.

I tried the Sumatran coffee and it was very rich with a velvety mouthfeel, dark chocolate aroma was present, and the coffee began to cool as you sipped the coffee. The subtle scents of citrus fruit were detected.

The roasted coffee will be taken to the store's Eversys Super-Automatic Brewing Machines, and brewed to your preferences in less than one minute. Customers can select from nine single origin selections and a range of blends.

Parlor Coffee

Parlor Coffee was founded in 2012 behind a barbershop, with a single espresso machine. It has since morphed into a burgeoning coffee roastery, with beans that are available in top cafes restaurants, cafes, and home brewers across the city. Parlor is committed to procuring high-quality coffee beans from across the globe, each of which has had to endure a lengthy journey before it reaches the roasters.

In their own words in their own words, they "have an unrelenting love of craft and believe that good coffee should be available to anyone." They do just that with their down-to-earth street space, which includes 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, but they also have cuppings on Sundays that are open to the public. Imagine it as a tasting room, where you can smell and taste the beans as they are roasted. They vary from earthy to chocolatey (one was similar to tomato!). It's a little off the beaten path but well worth the trip.