Coffee Bean Shop: 11 Things You're Not Doing

Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops

If you are an avid coffee drinker, then you should consider visiting a coffee shop. These shops offer a variety of whole beans from all over the globe. They also sell unique trinkets, kitchenware, and other items.

Some of these shops offer subscriptions for their coffee beans. Others sell the beans in bulk buy coffee beans (cool training) at their retail locations.

Porto Rico Importing Co.

Veteran coffee beans london shop that specializes in international brews, loose teas and a variety.

As you enter this old-fashioned West Village shop, the aroma of freshly roasted beans fills your nose. The shelves are packed with jars, sacks and dark brown beans, along with coffee-making equipment, tea accessories and sugar.

Porto Rico, originally opened in 1907 by Italian immigrants Patsy Albonese. At the time, Greenwich Village was seeing an large influx of Italian immigrants who set up businesses to meet their culinary requirements. Albanese named the shop after the famous Puerto Rican Coffee she imported and sold - a beverage that was so popular 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, the current president and owner of the company was raised over his family's bakery located on Bleecker Street where his father operated Porto Rico. He still runs the shop in the same way as his grandfather and father.

Sey Coffee

Sey Coffee, a coffee roaster and shop is located along Grattan Street, in Morgantown. The neighborhood, which is part of Brooklyn's Bushwick district is situated on Grattan Street. Tobin Polk, Lance Schnorenberg and their co-founders, who are 33 years old, started roasting coffee in a loft on the fourth floor, just around the corner, in 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 single farmers--has earned it the praise of discerning New York City coffee aficionados. Last year they made a 6-bag micro-lot purchase types of coffee beans Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai 785 from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The beans were picked when they were ripe and then floated to eliminate any defects. They were then dried on the farm following a 36-hour dry fermentation. The result is a coffee that is fragrant with hints of berry and melon.

Sey's commitment to holistically improving the well-being of staff, growers and customers extends beyond the retail store. It makes use of biodegradable disposables and composts, preventing waste from landfills and converting it to substances that reduce harmful greenhouse gases as well as nourish soil. It also eliminates gratuity, a move that puts the baristas in a position to sustain their livelihoods and motivate them to focus on their craft.

La Cabra

La Cabra, a modern specialty-coffee company, was founded in Aarhus in Denmark in 2012. They started with a small store and a committed staff. Their honest and innovative approach to delivering a truly exceptional coffee experience earned their acclaim not just in their home town but all over the world.

La Carba has a rigorous process for finding their perfect beans, searching through hundreds of different varieties every year to locate the ones that meet their standards. They roast them in a very light style then dial the roast to create their desired flavor profile. This gives the coffees a greater clarity and a more vibrant taste.

The East Village store, which opened in October last year, has been praised for its high-quality pour overs as well as its baked goods, which are overseen by Jared Sexton. He previously worked at Bien Cuit, Dominique Ansel and various coffee houses.

The shop utilizes the La Marzocco modbar, and the plates and cups are designed specifically for Wurtz ceramics in Horsens, which is a father-son studio. In a recent interview Atlanta Coffee Shops General Manager Ian Walla revealed that La Cabra serves 250 different coffees every day and usually has seven or eight different varieties available at any given moment.

The Roasting Plant Coffee

The Roasting Plant A multi-unit coffee retailer roasts and brews coffee on site. Each cup is brewed and roasted according to your preferences in less than seconds. It searches the world across the globe for the highest-quality specialty beans that are directly sourced that provide customers with a choice and high-quality.

Their on-site roaster is a fluid bed machine, which is different from traditional drum machines found in UK coffee beans bulk buy shops. The beans are blown around an enclosed box heated by high-speed air which keeps the green beans suspended and allows roasting to happen at a consistent rate throughout the machine.

I tried the Sumatran coffee and it was rich with smooth mouthfeel, dark chocolate aromas were evident and the coffee began to cool as you sip and subtle aromas of citrus fruit were detected.

The coffee that has been roasted is transported to the Eversys super-automatic brewing machines and brewed to your specification in just a few minutes. Customers can pick from nine single origin options and a wide range of blends.

Parlor Coffee

Parlor Coffee was founded in 2012 in a barbershop using a single espresso machine. It has since grown into a flourishing coffee roastery, and its beans can be found in a variety of great cafes restaurants, cafes, and home brewers throughout the city. Parlor Coffee is committed to procuring the finest quality beans, which have all undergone a long journey before arriving at its roasters.

The owners, who self-described as "passionate about coffee and believe that good coffee should accessible to everyone," have created a place that is a bit more grounded and has chalkboards, compost bins and up-cycled products, and low-frills decor.

They roast their own blends (there were six when I was there) and single-origins, but they also hold cuppings on Sundays that are open to the general public. Imagine it as a brewery tasting room, where you can taste and smell the ground beans. They are a mix of earthy and chocolate (one was almost like tomato!). They're away from the tourist trail but are worthwhile to visit.