Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you are a coffee enthusiast, you should consider visiting a coffee shop. These stores offer a wide variety of beans that are whole from all across the globe. They also offer unique trinkets and kitchenware.

Some of these shops offer subscriptions to their coffee beans. Some shops offer coffee beans in bulk.

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee shop that specializes in international brews and a selection of loose teas

As you enter this quaint West Village shop, the aroma of freshly roasting beans fills your nostrils. The shelves are packed with jars and sacks of dark brown beans, 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 experiencing an influx of Italian immigrants, who established businesses to satisfy their food requirements. Albanese named the shop after the popular Puerto Rican Coffee she imported and sold - a beverage that was so famous that at the time, even 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 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 ran Porto Rico. The business is still run by the shop in a similar fashion as his father did and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

Sey Coffee, a coffee shop and roaster, is located along Grattan Street, in Morgantown. This Brooklyn neighborhood, in the Bushwick district, is located on Grattan Street. Tobin Polk, Lance Schnorenberg and their 33-year-old co-founders began roasting coffee in the loft on the fourth floor, just across the street in 2011. They called 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 a single farmer has earned it the praise of knowledgeable New York City premium coffee beans aficionados. In 2011, Sey purchased a six-bag micro lot of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai, a Brazilian coffee bean shop near me from the Espirito-Santo region. The beans were hand-picked at their peak ripeness, floated to get rid of any imperfections and dried fermented for a period of 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a cup with hints of fruit and melon.

Sey's dedication to holistically improving the well-being of staff, growers and customers extends beyond the walls of the shop. It uses composts and biodegradable plastics to keep waste out of the landfills. This helps to reduce greenhouse gases and helps nourish the soil. It also removes gratuities. This allows baristas to concentrate on their work and earn a living.

La Cabra

La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee company that was founded in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. It started with a small shop and a dedicated team. Their innovative and honest approach to providing an outstanding most expensive coffee beans experience has earned them a devoted following not only in their home town but all over the world.

La Carba follows a strict method to select their best beans. They scour hundreds of beans each year in order to select the beans that best meet their ideals. They roast them light, adjusting the desired flavor profile. This gives the coffees a more vibrant flavor and clarity.

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

The shop is equipped with the La Marzocco Modbar and the cups, plates and bowls are made by Wurtz ceramics, a father/son studio located in Horsens. In a recent interview with Atlanta Coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves around 250 different types of coffees each year, and usually has seven or eight varieties available at any given moment.

The Roasting Plant Coffee

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

Their on-site roaster utilizes fluid bed technology which is a bit different to the drum-type machines that are commonly used in the majority of UK coffee shops. The Coffee Bean Shop beans are blown into the heated box using high-speed air that is circulated. This keeps the beans in suspension and allows for a consistent roasting speed.

I tried the Sumatran Coffee and it was smooth and rich with a velvety flavor. Dark chocolate was evident from the aroma. As you sip the coffee you could detect subtle citrus fruit aromas.

The roasted coffee is then transported to the Eversys super-automatic brewing equipment and it is brewed to your requirements in less than a minute. Customers can choose from nine single origins and various blends.

Parlor Coffee

Founded in 2012 in the back of a barbershop with an espresso machine with a single group, Parlor Coffee has become a growing roastery, whose beans can be found in top restaurants, cafes and home brewers in the city. Parlor is committed to sourcing top-quality beans from across the globe each of which is a long, arduous journey before reaching the roasters.

The owners, who are self-described as "passionate about their craft and believe that a good cup of coffee should be accessible to all," have created a place that is a bit more grounded and filled with chalkboards. There are compost bins, up-cycled hand-made products, and a minimalist interior.

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 a brewery tasting room where you can taste and smell the beans as they are roasted. They are a mix of earthy and chocolate (one was similar to tomato!). They're away from the main roads, but is worth a visit.