Changing coffee, together.

Bay Area CoRoasters (CoRo) is a collaborative coffee roasting facility that supports a community of roasting professionals, artisans, and enthusiasts by providing education, technical knowledge, and equipment.

Whether you’re an existing coffee company looking to increase your roasting capacity, you’re looking to jumpstart a new coffee business, or simply appreciate your cup of coffee in a new way, stop by and join our coffee community.

Roastery

We’re breaking down conventional coffee roasting barriers.

You don’t need to break the bank to start a coffee company. CoRo’s roasting facility offers the tools and professional training needed to roast, package, source, and sell coffee. Our diverse membership includes commercial roasters with established reputations, roasters jump-starting new brands, and home roasters taking the next step.

Learn more

CoRo Roasters

Coffee Room

CoRo’s Coffee Room showcases the hard work and dedication of our Member Roasters.

CoRo’s Coffee Room serves coffee roasted by CoRo Member Roasters on a rotating menu, allowing visitors to enjoy an exciting and dynamic coffee experience. Visit the Coffee Room website to see who’s on bar this month!

CoRo Coffee Room Website

Events

Upcoming Events

The Team

Featured

Mar 1, 2024

Joel Lohner

Mar 1, 2024

Roastery Manager and Education Director

Coffee Roaster and Q Grader

With over 9 years of experience in coffee, from bar to roasting, Joel has honed his craft on a diverse range of machines. His passion for roasting extends beyond the professional realm, as he experiments ideas on his home roaster during his downtime. With an unwavering commitment to quality and a genuine love for his craft, Joel continues pursuing excellence with boundless enthusiasm for all things coffee-related.

As a dedicated educator, Joel finds fulfillment in teaching others how to achieve their own coffee goals, sharing his expertise and insights with others. Beyond the roastery, Joel enjoys unwinding with friends over drinks and catching his favorite soccer team, Club América, in action. He also cherishes moments in nature, often embarking on hikes with his spouse and his dog.

Mar 1, 2024

Oct 1, 2021

BRYAN WARCHOL

Oct 1, 2021

Director of Coffee

Bryan has a decade of experience in the coffee industry under his belt, but his favorite roles have involved roasting and cupping coffee. He’s worked with 400 pound batches and 50 gram sample roasters, both drum and fluid bed machines, and every kind of coffee you can imagine. He brings this experience to CoRo as Roastery and Education Manager. He works with our roaster members to ensure safety, cleanliness, and efficiency in the roastery. In his role as Education Manager, he teaches everything from coffee basics to the intricacies of roast profiling using each machine in our space.

In his spare time, you can find him baking and cooking various vegan goods; hiking and camping in the backcountry in various national parks; trying to figure out his next tattoo; visiting the local record shop; or hitting up a punk show somewhere.

Oct 1, 2021

Aug 1, 2021

CHRISTOPHER THOMAS

Aug 1, 2021

Coffee Room Manager

Christopher has been working in coffee since 2008. After focusing on music and education as an undergraduate they found themselves wanting to combine their passions and co-opened an event space where they hosted donations based dinners, concerts, guest speakers, and other events for the community. The coffee industry has grown a lot in the last decade and Christopher has grown right along with it. Continuing their work as a barista they have worked with many well known roasters and restaurants specializing in barista training, coffee education, menu development, catering, and event organization. They work to ensure that our cafe is a place that is welcoming to people of all backgrounds to come together and enjoy the offerings from our roasters and hopes to showcase what is possible through community and collaboration. On their off days they can usually be found working on music, hiking in the woods, or collaborating on a dinner party with friends and family.

Aug 1, 2021

Sep 24, 2018

TIM HANSEN

Sep 24, 2018

CoFounder

Tim, a CoFounder, is a long-time coffee enthusiast. He learned to roast in 2012 and along with Paul installed the company’s first roaster, a Loring Merlin, which was replaced by our first Loring Kestrel. Since then he’s had a strong hand in equipping the business and shaping its direction. Over the years he’s been the Executive Director of the Julia Morgan Theater, served on Berkeley’s Landmarks Commission and Energy Commission, and the board of Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. He is also a past president of the Hillside Club.

Sep 24, 2018

PAUL GOLDSTONE

Sep 24, 2018

Chairman of CoRo Board of Directors

Paul Goldstone is Chairman of the CoRo Board of Directors and its primary funder. He has been a coffee lover and roaster for years. In addition to CoRo, he owns and manages a number of interests in the Bay Area and is currently developing a new state-of-the-art Market Hall in downtown San Rafael.

Sep 24, 2018

CoRo News

CoRo and Member Roasters in the News

Featured

When COVID-19 ended dance parties, this Oakland audio company started a coffee business

From Berkeleyside

“Waveworks founder Bradley Katz has turned to his other passion, coffee roasting, to get through the pandemic lull.”

Berkeley’s CoRo sets standard in coffee sharing by helping other brands

From Berekelyside

Bay Area business can be ruthless, with competing entities constantly trying to dominate each other right out of business.

It’s a little bit different at CoRo in Berkeley.

Bay Area CoRoasters, also known as CoRo, is a co-roaster to more than 20 separate, small coffee companies who come to the Fifth Street facility to process their beans. Including its four full-time employees, and eight part-timers, CoRo employs, or helps employ, about 50 people.

Bay Area CoRoasters Holding Fundraiser for Women Coffee Producers in Honduras

From DailyCoffeeNews:

In celebration of International Coffee Day, Bay Area CoRoasters, is hosting a fundraising party to support women coffee producers in Honduras with microcredit loans. The event will be held at CoRo on Tuesday, Oct. 1, from 5:30 to 9:00 p.m., and will include music, games, food and drinks.

Connect

Keep up with CoRo!

Come cup with us!
@gtcoffees is sharing some of their delicious offering with us!
dm for details & RSVP

CoRo is super excited to have @primavera.coffee come and host their last cupping of 2022 before we move into the new year! If you are a coffee professional in the bay come join us on Wednesday Nov. 9th @ 11AM!

A little about Primavera:

We’re

Hey Bay Area Coffee Community, super pumped to make this announcement!

We are teaming up with Crop to Cup & Showroom Coffee for a roasting demo on their Arc Sample Roasters on Saturday Nov. 5th @ 10am. The following day on Sunday Nov 6th @ 10am

CoRo is happy to have Santa Marta for a cupping on Tuesday August 2nd @ 10am in the CoRo cupping lab!

Santa Marta is a generational family owned & operated farm in Mataquescuintla, Guatemala that offers a coffee for everyone.

If you're a roaste

Bay Area Coffee Community, CoRo has a big announcement coming your way:

With over 30 different coffee brands that roast in the space, we've decided that it's time to get a subscription box service going. With such a wide range of different roast sty

CoRo is super excited to have @primavera.coffee come by for a cupping on July 30th at 11am!

A little about Primavera:

We’re a coffee importer specializing in high-quality lots and micro lots from Guatemala, with a sales office in Berkeley, CA

“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”

- Abraham Lincoln

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