Bensa Sidama

Bassline Coffee was founded in May 2020 in Oakland by Brad Katz, whose audio company Waveworks AV had spent close to three decades designing and installing high-end sound systems for clubs, restaurants, and one-off music events. When the pandemic brought that work to a halt, Katz used the opening to turn years of home roasting into a commercial venture, starting out on rented time at CoRo, the collaborative roastery in Berkeley. Today Bassline operates out of a shared Oakland warehouse alongside Waveworks AV, roasting at 444 Collaborative in Oakland on a Loring air roaster and a mid-sized Probat cast-iron drum machine. The lineup keeps a small core of year-round staples on the shelf and rotates in single origins, including from Cup of Excellence farms, with Katz aiming squarely at the world-class end of the market. Among Bassline's longtime wholesale accounts is Piccino, the ingredient-driven Italian restaurant in San Francisco's Dogpatch.