Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you're a coffee connoisseur, then you will want to check out a coffee bean shop. These stores provide a large range of whole beans from all across the globe. They also have unique trinkets and kitchenware.

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

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee seller who specializes in international brews, loose teas, and a wide selection.

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

The first restaurant opened in 1907, Porto Rico was founded by Italian immigrants Patsy Albanese. Greenwich Village at the time was witnessing an influx of Italian immigrants, who had opened businesses to meet their food requirements. Albanese named the shop after the popular Puerto Rican Coffee she imported and sold - a drink that was so popular at the moment, 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. Porto Rico also roasts its own beans and offers wholesale distribution to 350 restaurants in NYC and Brooklyn.

Peter Longo, the current president and owner of the company was raised on the top floor of the bakery of his family located on Bleecker Street where his father was the owner of Porto Rico. The business is still run by the shop in a similar way to his father and grandfather.

Sey Coffee

The shop is 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 33-year-old co-founders began roasting coffee in the loft on the fourth floor just across the street, in the year 2011. The name was 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 a single farmer has been praised by discerning New York City coffee aficionados. 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 peak ripeness, removed by flotation to eliminate defects and dried fermented for a period of 36 hours before being dried on the farm. The result is a cup with hints of berry, lemongrass, and melon.

Sey's focus on holistically improving the well-being of growers, staff and customers extends beyond the shop. It uses composts and biodegradable products to ensure that waste is kept out of landfills. This helps reduce greenhouse gases and helps nourish the soil. It also eliminates gratuity, which puts baristas into a position to help sustain their livelihoods and inspire them to concentrate on their craft.

La Cabra

La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee business that was founded in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. They started with a small store and a dedicated team. Their honest and innovative approach to delivering a truly exceptional coffee experience has earned them a following, not just in their home town, but globally.

La Carba follows a strict process to find their perfect beans. They scour through hundreds of lots each year to find those that best match their ideals. They then roast them very lightly, dialing in their desired flavor profile. This gives the coffees more vibrant flavor and clarity.

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

The shop utilizes a La Marzocco Modbar and the cups plates and bowls are designed by Wurtz ceramics, a father/son studio located in Horsens. In a recent Q&A with Atlanta coffee drinks Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves about 250 different coffees a year, and usually has seven or eight coffees available at any given time.

The Plant Coffee Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant A multi-unit retailer of coffee roasts and brews its coffee on the spot. Each cup is brewed and roasted according to your specifications in less than an hour. It searches far and far to find the finest, directly sourced specialty beans providing customers with choice and quality.

Their on-site roaster utilizes fluid bed technology, which is a bit different to the classic drum-type machines used in most UK coffee houses. The beans are blown about in a heated container by high-speed air that keeps the beans suspended and allows them to be roasted in a steady manner throughout the machine.

I tried the Sumatran Coffee and it was incredibly rich and velvety with a rich and velvety taste. Dark chocolate was evident in the aroma. As you sip the coffee there were subtle citrus fruit flavours.

The coffee that has been roasted will be poured into the store's Eversys Super-Automatic brewing Machines to be brewed according your preferences in less than a minute. Customers can pick from nine single origins as well as various blends.

Parlor Coffee

Founded in 2012 in the back of a barbershop equipped with an espresso machine that was single-group, Parlor Coffee has become a burgeoning roastery whose beans are sold at top restaurants, cafes and home brewers all over the city. Parlor Coffee is committed to procuring the highest quality beans that have gone through a long journey before they reach its roasters.

In their own words, they "have a relentless passion for craft and a belief that great coffee should be available to anyone." They do just that by creating a simple area on a residential street. Think compost bins, chalkboards hand-made up-cycled goods, and a minimally-decorated space.

They roast their own blends (there were six at the time I was there) and single-origins. But they also have cuppings on Sundays, which are accessible to the public. Imagine it as a tasting area where you can smell and coffee bean shop taste the beans as they are roasted. They are a mix of earthy and chocolate (one was similar to tomato!). They're away from the tourist trail but are it's worth the trip.