In Greenwich Village is one of New York City’s coffee mainstays, a Porto Rico Importing Company. First non-stop in 1907, Porto Rico was founded by Italian newcomer Patsy Albanese. At a commencement of a century, a Greenwich Village area was home to a flourishing village of Italian immigrants, and Albanese was one of many who opened businesses along Bleecker Street to prove a culinary needs of a community.
Just opposite a travel during 201 Bleecker Street, another Italian family, a Longo family, non-stop a Longo Sanitary Bakery on a belligerent building of a building. In 1958, Albanese sole Porto Rico Importing Company to a Longos, and eventually a coffee store changed into a 201 Bleecker Street space. Current, third-generation owners Peter Longo still lives upstairs from Porto Rico, in a building he grew adult in, his father Angelo was innate in and his grandfather Frank had purchased in 1905.
The Porto Rico name stays a bit of a poser however. Peter Longo told a New York Times that he suspects that when a initial store opened, Puerto Rico coffee was intensely renouned (even a Pope was celebration it), and Porto Rico is a Italian spelling of a U.S. territory.
Porto Rico now has 4 locations in New York City, though any retains that spin of a century feel, down to a aged universe signage out front and a open sacks of unground coffee beans on display. The Bleecker Street location, that is one of a stops on a Greenwich Village Coffee Tasting and Tour, is in many ways a essence of a company, so tighten to a strange plcae and with many of a architectural elements from a early 1900s still manifest including tin ceilings and aged propagandize roof fans. A handmade wall of shelving binds potion jars of loose-leaf tea from all around a world.
Greenwich Village Coffee Tour Tasting
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Greenwich Village Coffee Tour Tasting
1.5 HOURS $39
Discover a startling story of coffee in NYC on this singular walking tour! Taste several coffees and try Greenwich Village’s dark gems.
Porto Rico offers over 130 varieties of coffee from countries like Burundi, Kenya, Indonesia, Guatemala, and Brazil. On a menu is a 100th Anniversary Blend featuring 6 opposite coffees, singular Panama Finca Santa Teresa Geisha Natural Coffee grown during a high altitude, and a preference of organic coffees. Porto Rico also sells indiscriminate to over 350 restaurants. And if we like, any of Porto Rico’s locations has a coffee bar for present gratification.
“The biggest thing about coffee is how it brings out a particular inlet of a people who splash it,” Porto Rico writes on a website. “It becomes partial of a comforting daily ritual. It gives us all an event to be people in a universe left insane with constraints.”
Additionally, Porto Rico also offers a preference of teas from oolong to chai to scented. New to a store is their Tanzanian Usambara and Assam Koilamari teas. Popular teas embody their preference of white teas, residence blends like Ceylon mint, Darjeelings, and rooibos, a red herbal tea local to South Africa. Additionally, they also lift a preference of spices like cinnamon, peppercorns, hibiscus, and lavender.
And in further to a accumulation of chocolate-covered products like orange peels and espresso beans, Porto Rico also offers a preference of Torani Italian syrups used for Italian sodas. There are also a accumulation of coffee machines from brands like La Pavoni and Chemex as good as a series of coffee filters.
You can also find Porto Rico during St. Marks Place in a East Village, Essex Market on a Lower East Side, and Grand Street in Williamsburg. Visit a Bleecker Street store and get a tasting of a famous Porto Rico coffee on a subsequent Greenwich Village Coffee Tasting and Tour (we’ve even got one tomorrow!).
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