The Story
Parlor Coffee was founded in 2012 by Dillon Edwards, who started with nothing but a single-group espresso machine and a determination to roast the finest coffee in New York City. The first location was in the back of Persons of Interest, a barbershop in Williamsburg — one of the more unusual but fitting addresses in New York specialty coffee. A barbershop is about craft, precision, and the pleasure of a thing done well. So is Parlor.
The underground-roastery concept that defined the early operation has since evolved: Parlor now operates with its roastery and headquarters on the border of Brooklyn’s historic Navy Yard, a neighborhood whose industrial character suits a small-batch roasting operation better than most New York addresses would.
The company has stayed small by design. In a city where coffee companies often expand aggressively, Parlor’s commitment to small-batch production is a deliberate choice — one that keeps quality control tractable and keeps the sourcing operation connected to what it’s producing.
Sourcing & Relationships
Parlor sources exclusively from Coffea arabica varieties, working with farms across Ethiopia, Colombia, Kenya, Guatemala, and Rwanda. The sourcing philosophy is variety-aware: the specific cultivar grown at a farm matters, because varieties like Bourbon, Typica, and Heirloom Ethiopian landraces produce distinct flavor profiles that roasting and brewing can either reveal or obscure.
Small-batch purchasing means Parlor buys limited quantities of coffees they can fully evaluate and sell while fresh, rather than committing to large contracts that outlast a crop’s peak quality.
Roasting Philosophy
Parlor roasts to reveal rather than impose. The goal on any given lot is sweetness, balance, and the complexity specific to that origin — not a Parlor signature that overrides those qualities. Profiles are developed lot by lot, with the source material driving the decisions rather than a fixed formula applied across the catalogue.
This approach demands more from the roasting team but produces results that are more expressive of what makes each coffee worth buying in the first place.
What to Try
The seasonal single-origin offerings are the main event — pick based on what’s current and what origin interests you, as the quality is consistently high across the catalogue. The espresso applies the same single-origin sourcing to a different brewing context, with profiles that deliver clarity rather than the blended approachability many New York espresso bars default to. Limited small-batch lots, when available, represent the ceiling of what Parlor’s sourcing program produces.