Gorilla Coffee and Ninth Street Espresso are two of our favorites in New York City. Where do you buy your beans?
We love how Ninth Street -- with locations in Chelsea Market and the East Village -- blogs what they are roasting and focuses on the origin of their beans. Gorilla promises that all of their coffee is fair trade and organic, roasted right in Brooklyn. Gorilla Coffee is available in some Whole Foods Markets.
• For more coffee house culture, check out today's New York Times. This business article shows how the little guy -- like Gorilla and Ninth Street -- go up against Starbucks and win!
• For those of us not in New York City, where do you buy your coffee beans? We are big fans of Sweet Maria's in Oakland, California, for green beans (for home roasting) as well as freshly-roasted beans. But there are several local roasters we patronize as well.
• The Handpresso - Espresso to go, wherever you are!
• The Brugo Mug - Tip to cool in the specially constructed lid, then sip. No more burnt tongue!
• Joel Domreis delivers hand-roasted coffee - by bike
• Interview with an Allegro Coffee Buyer, from her jungle cottage.
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Gimme Coffee in Williamsburg. Seriously, the best. I like the learn section on the website:
http://www.gimmecoffee.com/index.php
Sweet Marias for the green beans. A local coffee shop (in AZ) for the roasted.
I get it locally in Westchester County - either Giaco Bean (www.giacobean.com) at Antoinette's in Hastings or Coffee Labs in Tarrytown - both fair trade and organic. If I'm in a pinch with get something at Trader Joe's.
Sometimes I buy beans at Oren's, but mostly I get my coffee at Fairway. Maybe that makes me a peon, but I'm a paupered addict.
I buy my fair-trade beans custom roasted from Pemberton Valley Coffee Company, which is located about an hour north of Whistler, BC, which is about two hours north of Vancouver, where I live. Only problem is they don't do retail, so every couple of months I phone them and get a 5-lb bag shipped to me by Greyhound, which I pick up at the bus depot.
It sounds absurd when I write it, but I sampled their wares at a farmer's market a while back and was instantly hooked. It's seriously the best coffee I've ever had. And the company is so friendly and accommodating -- and the shipping is quite cheap, when you factor in the fact that I'm paying the same price that coffee shops do -- that it really isn't as absurd as it sounds (I swear).
Intelligentsia has great coffee beans that can be bought at coffee shops and online I believe.
Whole foods though has an in house roaster that does a pretty good job. And all of their beans have roasting dates on them so you could potentially purchase them while they are still warm from the roaster.
When I used to live there, I'd go to the ING Cafe in Midtown on the way to work and get VERY fresh Peet's coffee and smell it all day at work. HAPPY!!! I guess I'm a coffee junkie!
Blue Bottle Coffee Co., artisinal microroasters of organic coffee in Oakland (CA). In addition to their kickass espresso roasts, their medium-roasts are sublime.
They were also recently profiled in the New York Times for their only one of its kind in the U.S., imported from Japan, $20,000 halogen powered siphon bar. It is, in a word, insane:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/dining/23coff.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Porto Rico is our favorite. Inexpensive beans, at least for NYC. Be prepared for an interrogation on what kind of coffeemaker you have when it comes time to select the type of grind you want.
There's one on the corner of Bleecker and 6th Ave and another one over in the East Village on St. Marks Place/8th Street and 3rd Ave.
Daniel Koontz
Casual Kitchen
Leaf & Bean on 7th Ave in Park Slope has a great selection and a very nice, helpful and non-snobby staff. smells like heaven in there.
and I LOVE Gorilla Coffee when I'm on the go. they're really coffee artists in there.
Blue Bottle Coffee (roasts in Oakland, sells in San Francisco) - their kiosk is a few blocks from my house. Delicious.
We pick up a couple pounds of espresso from Gorilla every time we're in Brooklyn. I just enjoyed a shot this morning. Very few other places manage to get so much flavour and intensity into their beans.
I have to say that I love Porto Rico -- I've found everyone there to be so helpful!
My husband gets his either at Porto Rico or at the Park Slope Food Coop. He's very picky, so I was surprised he liked the Coop stuff, but it's fair trade, dark and very pungent.
I've been ordering from Scott Bros. Coffee for years, and it's absolutely delicious. They are located in Washington State, but they do mailorder and offer a subscription service, which is great when you tend to forget to order until you grind the last bean! They offer all organic, fair trade coffees from all over the world, and the beans are freshly roasted just before they're shipped out so they're incredibly aromatic and have a beautiful, oily sheen. I've also started buying decaf from them, and it's as good as the real thing. Best thing is I always get a personalized note from Dave Scott with every order! Website is www.scottbroscoffee.com -- they offer free samples, too!
Shout out to Orens! Woo woo!
Java Joe's -- Park Slope on 8th street just off 7th Ave. The absolute best, freshest, small batch beans. Support your local little guy :)
MUD coffee. Love those guys.
Peet's.
We make a special trip every now and then to Tarrytown from NYC to pick up a couple of pounds of Sinful Delight at Coffee Labs. The best-smelling and -tasting coffee ever.
After walking all over midtown west to the Eastside and back west down 57th St on a Sunday, we were about to give. We found a pancake place on 57th st,(yeah seemed out of place) and we would up ordering a used coffee maker for our extended stay hotel room and settled for coffee from Starbucks. We were in town for a week from LA. So, if you have any suggestions for our next visit.