The 10 Most Terrifying Things About Coffee Bean Shop
Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops
If you're a lover of coffee You'll want to go to a coffee bean shop. These stores offer a wide range of whole beans from all across the globe. These stores also sell unique trinkets, kitchenware, and other items.
Some of these shops offer subscriptions for their coffee beans. Others sell the beans in bulk at their retail stores.
Porto Rico Importing Co.
Veteran coffee seller specializing in international brews and a selection of loose teas
When you walk into this old-school West Village shop, the scent of freshly coffee beans fills your nostrils. Open bags of dark-brown beans line the shelves, along with sugar jars, coffee-making equipment and tea accessories.
Porto Rico, originally opened in 1907 by Italian immigrant Patsy Albonese. Greenwich Village at the time was experiencing an influx Italian immigrants, who opened businesses to meet their food needs. Albanese named her shop after the popular Puerto Rican coffee she imported (and sold) which was so famous at the time that even the Pope drank 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 above the bakery of his family located on Bleecker Street where his father was the owner of Porto Rico. The owner continues to run the shop in the same way as his grandfather and father.
Sey Coffee
The shop is located along Grattan Street in Morgantown, Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, Sey Coffee is both a roaster and coffee shop. Co-founders Tobin Polk and Lance Schnorenberg, both 33 started roasting in the fourth-floor loft just around the corner from their new store in 2011 under the name Lofted organic coffee beans (with local clients including Greenpoint's Budin and Soho cart service Peddler).
Sey's reliance on micro-lots -- or even whole harvests from single farmers--has been praised by discerning New York City top 10 coffee beans aficionados. In the past they made a 6-bag micro-lot purchase of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai 785 from Brazil's Espirito Santo region. The beans were picked at their peak ripeness and then floated to eliminate any imperfections. They were then dried on the farm following a 36-hour dry fermentation. The result is a coffee with hints of berry melon and lemongrass.
Sey's commitment goes beyond its shop to improve the overall well-being of staff and growers, as well as its customers. It uses biodegradable disposables and composts to keep waste out of landfills and converting it to substances that reduce harmful greenhouse gases and nourish soil. It also eliminates gratuity, which puts baristas in a position to help sustain their livelihoods and encourage them to concentrate on their profession.
La Cabra
La Cabra is a modern specialty coffee brand that was established in Aarhus, Denmark in 2012. It began with a tiny store and a dedicated staff. Their honest and innovative approach to delivering an extraordinary coffee experience has earned them a following, not just in their own town however, but across the globe.
La Carba has a rigorous procedure for locating their ideal beans, searching through hundreds of different lots every year to find ones that are perfect for their tastes. They roast them lightly, adjusting their desired flavor profile. This gives their coffees an enhanced taste and clarity.
The East Village store opened last October with a sleek and minimalist style, and has been praised by global 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 is equipped with a La Marzocco Modbar and the cups, plates and bowls are crafted by Wurtz ceramics, a father-and-son studio located in Horsens. In a recent Q&A with Atlanta Coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves around 250 different varieties of coffee each year, and usually has seven or eight varieties available at any given moment.
The Plant Coffee Roasting Plant Coffee
The Roasting Plant is the only multi-unit retailer of coffee which roasts on-site and brews to order, with every cup of coffee roasted and brewed to your specifications in less than an hour. It searches the globe for the highest-quality specialty beans that are directly sourced providing customers with choices and high-quality.
The roaster they have on site is a fluid bed machine which is different from classic drum machines used in UK coffee shops. The beans are blown in a heated box with high-velocity 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 rich and velvety with a velvety taste. Dark chocolate was evident in the aroma and as you sipped the coffee there were subtle citrus fruit aromas.
The roasted coffee will be taken to the Eversys Super-Automatic Brewing Machines to be brewed according your specifications in less than one minute. Customers can pick from nine single origins and various blends.
Parlor Coffee
The company was founded in 2012 at the back of a barbershop that had a single-group espresso machine, Parlor Coffee has become a rapidly growing roastery whose beans are found at great cafes, restaurants and home brewers throughout the city. Parlor is committed to sourcing high-quality beans from around the globe Each one is a long, arduous journey before it reaches the hands of its roasters.
According to their own words according to their own words, they "have an unstoppable passion for craft and a belief that good coffee beans sale should be available to everyone." They achieve that with their down-to-earth space on a residential street--think compost bins, a chalkboard welcome handmade up-cycled items, and a minimalist deco.
They roast their own blends (there were six at the time I was there) and single-origins, but they also hold cuppings on Sundays that are open to the public. Imagine it as a tasting room, where you can smell and taste the beans in the ground. They range from earthy to chocolatey (one was almost like tomato!). It's a bit away from the main roads, but worth the trip.
