Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops
If you’re a coffee lover and you’re looking for a place to shop, then you’ll need to go to a coffee shop. These stores provide a large assortment of whole beans from all over the world. These stores also sell unique trinkets, kitchenware and other products.
Some of these shops offer subscriptions to their coffee beans. Others offer large quantities of coffee beans at their retail locations.
Porto Rico Importing Co.
Veteran coffee shop that specializes in international brews, loose teas and a variety.
The scent of freshly roasting beans fills the air as you enter this West Village shop. Open sacks of dark-brown beans are stacked on the shelves along with jars of sugar, coffee beans to buy-making equipment and tea accessories.
In 1907, the first time it was opened, Porto Rico was founded by Italian immigrants Patsy Albanese. At the time, Greenwich Village was seeing an increase in Italian immigrants who set up establishments to cater to their dietary requirements. Albanese named her shop after the popular Puerto Rican coffee she imported (and sold) the beverage was that was so well-known at the time that even the Pope was a fan.
Today, Porto Rico sells 130 varieties of beans from around the globe at three locations in New York City including their Bleecker Street location, Essex Market and online. Porto Rico roasts its own beans and provides 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. He runs the business in the same way as his father and grandfather.
Sey Coffee
It is located on 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 started roasting coffee in the loft on the fourth floor, just across the street, in 2011. The name was Lofted Coffee. Local clients included Greenpoint’s Budin, and Soho cart services Peddler and Peddler.
Sey’s preference for buying micro-lots, or even whole harvests from single farmers has earned it the respect of New York City coffee enthusiasts. Last year, they made a six-bag micro-lot purchase of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai 785 from Brazil’s Espirito Santo region. The beans were harvested when they were ripe 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 a little berry and melon.
Sey’s focus on holistically improving the quality of life for employees, customers and growers extends beyond the walls of the shop. It utilizes composts and biodegradable disposables in order to keep waste out of landfills. This helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also nourish the soil. It also eliminates gratuity, a move that puts baristas in a position to help sustain their livelihoods as well as encourage them to concentrate on their art.
La Cabra
La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee company founded in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. It began with a tiny store and a team of dedicated employees. Their honest and innovative approach to delivering an extraordinary coffee experience has earned them a following that was not only in their hometown, but globally.
La Carba follows a strict method to select their best beans. They search through hundreds of beans each year to find those that best meet their ideals. Then, they roast them in a light style, dialing the roast to create their desired flavor profile. This gives their coffees clearer and more vibrant taste.
The East Village store opened last October with a sleek and minimalist design. It has been praised by international coffee aficionados for its exacting pour overs and baked goods supervised by head baker Jared Sexton, who’s previously worked at Bien Cuit and Dominique Ansel.
The shop uses a La Marzocco modbar and the plates and cups are made by Wurtz ceramics in Horsens, which is a father-son studio. In a recent Q&A with Atlanta Coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves approximately 250 different types of coffees each year, and usually has seven or eight varieties available at any given time.
The Roasting Plant Coffee
The Roasting Plant is the only multi-unit retailer of coffee beans london that roasts on site and brews to order, with each cup of coffee roasting and brewed according to your requirements in less than minutes. It searches far and far to find the finest specialty beans, which are directly sourced that offer customers a variety and high-quality.
Their on-site roaster is an automatic fluid bed machine that is distinct from the traditional drum machines that are used in UK coffee shops. The beans are blown into the heated box using high-speed, circulating air. This keeps the beans suspended and allows for a constant roasting rate.
I tried the Sumatran coffee and it was delicious with a an enveloping mouthfeel, dark chocolate from the fragrance was evident and the coffee began to cool as you sip the coffee. The subtle scents of citrus fruit were evident.
The coffee is then be transferred to the Eversys Super-Automatic Brewing Machines and brewed according to your preferences in less than a minute. Customers can pick from nine single origins and several blends.
Parlor Coffee
Parlor Coffee was founded in 2012 in a barbershop with a single espresso machine. It has since morphed into a burgeoning premium coffee beans roastery, and its beans are sold in top cafes restaurants, cafes, and home brewers all over the city. Parlor is dedicated to sourcing top-quality beans from all over the world Each one has been through a long and difficult journey before it reaches the roasters.
The owners, who are self-described as “passionate about their craft and believe that good coffee beans types should be available to everyone,” have created a space that is down-to earth and filled with chalkboards. There are compost bins, up-cycled handmade products, and a minimalist interior.
They roast their own blends (there were six at the time I was there) and single-origins. But they also hold cuppings on Sundays, which are open to the general public. Imagine it as a brewery tasting area–you can taste and smell the beans that are ground. They vary from earthy to chocolaty (one was almost like tomato!). It’s a bit off the beaten track, but well worth the trip.