Give back to the environment with your morning cup of Joe. I’ve scouted Long Island for the local shops that brew beans under strict supervision for a much richer taste as opposed to coffee grown for quantity not quality.
Related Content: Southdown Coffee Expanding to Oyster Bay
Jack’s Stir Brew Coffee, Sag Harbor & Amagansett
Jack Mazzola founded his first coffee shop in 2003 with his own special method, ensuring all his java was evenly brewed. His shops are focused on creating a sense of community, which he accomplishes by working directly with the farmers and purveyors he uses to help pioneer the crop-to-cup movement. Go.
The Babylon Bean & The Bay Shore Bean
image: facebook.com/pg/babylonbean
These two shops not only offer freshly roasted fair-trade coffees imported from all over the world, they also are very involved in their surrounding communities. Both the Babylon and Bay Shore Bean locations support and showcase artwork from local talent and feature live tunes. Plus, if coffee isn’t really your thing, their en vogue matcha is organic too. Go Babylon. Go Bay Shore.
Southdown Coffee, Huntington
image: southdown coffee
This eco-friendly shop is dedicated to sourcing coffees from environmentally friendly producers. Owner Mark Boccard revealed that for this year’s harvest, Southdown Coffee will be switching to a coffee from Fazenda Primavera, which is Rainforest Alliance and Organic Certified. It’s called Bull Moose Coffee, and the business will donate $1 from every bag sold to the National Parks Service. Commuters in the Oyster Bay area will be able to take a taste closer to home when Southdown expands in the spring of 2017. Go.
Thunder Island Coffee, Southampton
Thunder Island Coffee Roasters is a Native American owned and operated coffee roasting facility. It is USDA Certified Organic and Fair Trade USA, using coffee beans from the high mountains of Central and South America. All of the shop’s coffees are roasted on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation. The day you order a bag is the day beans are roasted and shipped, giving Thunder Island a leg-up on online competitors. Go.
North Fork Roasting Company, Southold
North Fork Roasting Company, a small-batch artisanal coffee shop, brings together local artists, farmers, ranchers, musicians, wine-makers and fishmongers. The company sources from businesses such as Browders Birds, North Fork Egg Farm, KK’s The Farm, Backyard Brine, Deep Roots Farm and The Farm Beyond to support organic and sustainable farming methods. Go.
COFFEED, Port Washington
COFFEED serves only single-origin coffees sourced from fair or direct trade, which are expertly roasted in small batches. It also sources food ingredients from the highest-quality local purveyors. By using a state-of-the-art composter, located on the roof of the flagship location in Long Island City, COFFEED composts all of its coffee grinds and food waste from the café, which turns into fertilizer for future produce. Go.
ROAST Coffee and Tea Trading Company, Patchogue
This coffee shop, a stone’s throw from Pulse’s HQ in Patchogue, is all about locally-roasted beans. The coffees are also single origin, meaning its unique place of growth will probably have a taste indicative of where it was farmed. Go.
Gentle Brew, Long Beach
This past summer, Gentle Brew transitioned to strictly biodegradable paper and plastic goods for to-go cups. Even the wholesale bags are compostable, and the roast Sumatra Mandheling coffee is both Fair Trade and Organic. Workers at Gentle Brew report they are working to build relationships directly with farmers, including one in Peru and two in Costa Rica, with the hopes of directly purchasing coffee from them in the next few years. Go.
Cause Café, Northport
image: facebook.com/ourcoffeewcause
Cause Café is new to Long Island, but wasted no time in getting its name out there. The store is staffed with multiple young adults with a variety of cognitive disabilities. Cause Café gives a portion of the proceeds from “Our Coffee With A Cause” to “Our Own Place Charity,” a community for special needs children and their struggling parents. Go.
Aldo’s Coffee Company, Greenport
image: aldo’s coffee co.
Aldo’s coffees are all organic, many are Fair Trade and a few of the single origin beans are Rainforest Alliance. The packaging for the beans is made of recyclable paper with compostable linings and the to-go cups were just changed to Ripple Wrap to eliminate cardboard sleeves. Even the burlap coffee bags that the green beans are shipped in are “up-cycled” into tote and messenger bags, which are sold in the café and on site. Go.