Henrique do Valle

Founder, Brooklyn Coffee Guide

Henrique do Valle founded Brooklyn Coffee Guide, and he's the reason some shops here carry a badge with his name on it. Every one of them is a place he went to himself and keeps going back to.

The hills around us were covered with coffee farms (fazendas) where families had been growing coffee for generations.
Henrique, on Henrique's Corner

Where he's from

He grew up in Santa Rita, a small town in the Mantiqueira de Minas region of Brazil, where the hillsides are covered in fazendas. At that altitude, the cooler air and fertile soil give the coffee something special. Most farms there dry the coffee natural, with the bean left inside the fruit in the sun, and you can taste it in the sweetness and the body. The trees are Red and Yellow Catuaí, named for the color the cherry turns when it's ripe. That's what he drank growing up, usually as a cafezinho, brewed strong and sweet on the stove and shared with the neighbors.

How the guide started

When he moved to Brooklyn, he went looking for shops that gave him that same feeling. He wanted places where someone cares how the coffee is made and you can taste where it came from. He built brooklyncoffeeshops.com to share the ones he found.

How his picks work

He has to have been there himself. The coffee has to be the reason you'd go, and the room should feel like somebody put some thought into it. Chains don't make the cut, and a high Google score on its own doesn't either. No shop can pay for a badge or a better spot on the page.

The ratings on each shop page still come straight from Google. His picks sit on top of them, and how we rank explains how the two fit together.