Sweetleaf Expands to Brooklyn
Sweetleaf opened a coffee shop Monday on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg. It’s the second location for Sweetleaf, which has a devoted audience in Long Island City, and the latest addition to the growing Williamsburg coffee scene: Blue Bottle Coffee, Toby’s Estate Coffee and a number of other serious coffee shops are close by.
The new Sweetleaf will use espressos from Ritual Coffee Roasters, a highly respected San Francisco roaster whose coffees are rarely seen on this coast. Sweetleaf will be pulling two different espressos, the “Nine Darling Road” seasonal espresso and the El Naranjo: Cumbrita from El Slavador, the May “Sweet Tooth” single-origin espresso. Sweetleaf is one of a handful of shops in New York to offer different espressos at the same time: if you haven’t tried two espressos side by side, it’s a revelation to discover how distinct each shot tastes.
Sweetleaf will also brew coffee from Heart Coffee Roasters, a cult roaster in Portland, Ore., and Stumptown Coffee Roasters.
Sweetleaf’s original location in Long Island City is a neighborhood hangout where serious coffee is prepared according to precise techniques and methodology (every shot of espresso is weighed on a digital scale, and those that don’t measure up are thrown out), and served in a bar-like atmosphere (the room in the back has a turntable and a stack of records that would have gotten you detention at some schools in the 1980s).
The new Sweetleaf will be as obsessed with coffee as the first (the scales are here), and will be as relaxed (there’s fussball), but the scene here might reflect the economic aspirations of the new Williamsburg: the coffee shop shares a loft-like storefront with a real estate office.
Sweetleaf, 135 Kent Avenue (North 6th Street), no telephone, www.sweetleaflic.com. Open Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.