Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a lover of coffee You'll want to visit the shops selling coffee beans. These shops offer a broad selection of whole beans from all across the globe. They also have unique trinkets and kitchenware.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee beans delivery shop that specialises in international brews loose teas and a variety.

The aroma of freshly roasted beans fills the air when you walk into this West Village shop. The sacks of dark brown beans line the shelves alongside jars of sugar, coffee-making equipment as well as tea accessories.

Porto Rico, originally opened in 1907 by Italian immigrants Patsy Albonese. Greenwich Village at the time was witnessing a surge of Italian immigrants, who established businesses to satisfy their culinary needs. Albanese named her shop after the famous Puerto Rican coffee she imported (and sold) the beverage was so popular that even the Pope consumed 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. Porto Rico 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 over his family's bakery on Bleecker Street where his father operated Porto Rico. He still runs the business in the same manner as his father and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

It is located along Grattan Street in Morgantown, Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, Sey Coffee is both a coffee shop and 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 commitment to buying micro-lots, and even whole harvests, from single farmers has earned it the acclaim 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 harvested at their peak of ripeness and steamed to remove any defects. They were then dried on the farm after 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 health of employees, customers and growers extends beyond the walls of the shop. It utilizes composts and biodegradable disposables in order to ensure that waste is kept out of the landfills. This helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also nourish the soil. It also reduces gratuity. This lets baristas concentrate on their work and help sustain their livelihoods.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty coffee brand, was founded in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. It began with a tiny store and a dedicated staff. Their honesty and ingenuity to delivering a truly exceptional coffee experience earned their acclaim not just in their own town, but globally.

La Carba follows a strict process to find their perfect beans. They scour hundreds of varieties each year in order to find those that best meet their standards. Then they roast them in a very light style and dial the roast to create their desired flavor profile. This gives the coffees a more intense flavor and clarity.

The East Village store, which opened in October last year it has been praised for its excellent pour overs, as well as the baked goods, overseen by Jared Sexton. He previously worked at Bien Cuit, Dominique Ansel as well as other coffee establishments.

The shop is equipped with a La Marzocco modbar, and the plates and cups are made by Wurtz ceramics in Horsens, an artist-run by a father and son. In a recent Q&A with Atlanta Coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves about 250 different types of coffees each year, coffeee and typically has seven or eight varieties on offer at any given point.

The Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant is the only multi-unit coffee retailer that roasts on site and brews to order with each cup of coffee roasted and brewed according to your requirements in less than a minute. It searches the world for the finest specialty beans that are directly sourced providing customers with choices and high-quality.

Their onsite roaster uses fluid bed technology, which is a bit different to the drum-type machines commonly found in the majority of UK coffee shops. The beans are blown about in an enclosed box heated by high-speed air, which keeps the green beans in suspension and allows roasting to happen at a consistent rate when they pass through the machine.

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

The coffee that has been roasted is whisked to the store's Eversys super-automatic brewing machines and brewed to your specification in just a few minutes. Customers can select from nine single origins as well as different blends.

Parlor Coffee

In 2012, the company was established in the back of a barbershop, complete with a single-group espresso machine, Parlor Coffee has become a rapidly growing roastery whose beans are available at top cafes, restaurants and home brewers across the city. Parlor is dedicated to procuring high-quality coffee beans from all over the world, each of which has been through a long and difficult journey before it reaches the hands of its roasters.

The owners, who self-described as "passionate about their craft and believe that a good cup of coffee should be accessible to all," have created a environment that is simple and has chalkboards, compost bins and up-cycled items, and simple decor.

They roast and create their own blends as well as single-origins (there were six on the menu when I was there), but they also offer cuppings on Sundays, which are open to the public. Imagine it as an artisanal tasting room in which you can smell and taste the beans, ranging from chocolaty earthy (one was very tomato-like!). They're a bit off the beaten path but are well worth a trip.