A Productive Rant Concerning Coffee Bean Shop
Five Brooklyn Coffee Bean Shops
If you're a lover of coffee, then you will want to check out the shops selling coffee beans. They offer a wide selection of whole beans from all over the world. They also sell unique trinkets and kitchenware.
Some of these shops offer subscriptions to their coffee beans. Others offer the beans in bulk at their retail locations.
Porto Rico Importing Co.
Veteran coffee seller that specialises in international brews loose teas and a variety.
When you enter this old-school West Village shop, the aroma of freshly roasting beans fills the air. Open bags of dark-brown beans line the shelves alongside sugar jars as well as coffee-making equipment and tea accessories.
Porto Rico, originally opened in 1907 by Italian immigrant Patsy Albonese. At the time, Greenwich Village was seeing an increasing number of Italian immigrants who set up businesses to cater to their culinary needs. Albanese named the shop after the famous Puerto Rican Coffee she imported and sold - a drink that was so renowned in the present, that even the Pope would drink it.
Porto Rico offers 130 different varieties of beans, which includes beans from all over the world at three locations, including Bleecker Street, Essex Market and online. The company also roasts their own beans and provides wholesale distribution for 350 restaurants in NYC, Brooklyn and Brooklyn.
Peter Longo, current owner and president, was raised in the family bakery located on Bleecker Street, where his father was the owner of Porto Rico. He continues to run the shop in the same way as his father and grandfather.
Sey Coffee
Sey Coffee, a coffee roaster and shop, is located along Grattan Street, in Morgantown. This Brooklyn neighborhood, in the Bushwick district is located on Grattan Street. Co-founders Tobin Polk and Lance Schnorenberg, both 33, started roasting in a fourth-floor loft across the street from their new store in 2011 under the name Lofted Coffee (with local clients including Greenpoint's Budin and Soho cart service Peddler).
Sey's focus on buying micro-lots, and even whole harvests, from single farmers has earned it the acclaim of New York City coffee enthusiasts. Last year, Sey purchased a six-bag micro lot of Danilo Dones Sitio Catucai, a Brazilian coffee from the 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 with hints of berry melon and lemongrass.
Sey's focus on holistically improving the wellbeing of employees, customers and growers extends beyond the store. It utilizes composts and biodegradable disposables in order to keep waste out of the landfills. This helps reduce greenhouse gases as well as nourish the soil. It also eliminates gratuity, a move that puts baristas in a position to sustain their livelihoods and encourage them to concentrate on their art.
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 dedicated staff. Their innovative and honest method of providing an exceptional coffee experience has earned them a loyal following not just in their local area and across the globe.
La Carba has a rigorous method of identifying their ideal beans, scouring through hundreds of different varieties a year to find the ones that meet their standards. They roast them lightly, dialing in their desired flavor profile. This results in a brighter taste and clarity.
The East Village store, which opened in the month of October last year it has been praised for its premium 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 a La Marzocco Modbar and the cups, plates and bowls are made by Wurtz ceramics, a father-and son studio located in Horsens. In a recent interview with Atlanta Coffee Shops, General Manager Ian Walla reveals that La Cabra serves approximately 250 different varieties of coffee each year, and usually has seven or eight different varieties available at any given point.
The Plant Coffee Roasting Plant Coffee
The Roasting Plant is the only multi-unit retailer of coffee that roasts on site and brews to order with each cup of coffee being roasted and brewed to your specifications in less than one minute. It searches the world across the globe for the highest-quality specialty beans that are directly sourced providing customers with choice and quality.
The roaster they have on site is a fluid bed device, which is different from traditional drum machines that are used in UK coffee shops. The beans are blown about in an enclosed box heated by high-speed air, which keeps the green beans in suspension and allows roasting to happen at a consistent rate as they travel through the machine.
I tried the Sumatran Coffee and it was smooth and rich with a velvety taste. Dark chocolate was evident from the aroma. As you sip the coffee, you could smell subtle citrus fruit flavors.
The coffee that has been roasted is transported to the store's Eversys super-automatic brewing equipment and brewed to your specification in just a few minutes. Customers can select from nine single origin selections and a wide range of blends.
Parlor Coffee
Parlor Coffee was founded in 2012 in a barbershop with a single espresso machine. It has since morphed into a burgeoning coffee roastery, whose coffee beans are available in top cafes, restaurants, and home brewers throughout the city. Parlor Coffee is committed to finding the highest quality beans that have been through a lengthy journey before reaching its roasters.
In their own words, they "have an unstoppable passion for craft and believe that good coffee should be available to anyone." coffee beans shop do just this with their earthy street space, which includes compost bins, chalkboards, handmade up-cycled products and low-frills deco.
They roast their own blends (there were six when I was there) and single-origins, however they also have cuppings on Sundays, which are open to the general public. Imagine it as a tasting room, where you can smell and taste the beans in the ground. They vary from earthy to chocolaty (one was similar to tomato!). It's a little off the beaten path, but well worth the trip.