Osito Coffee & Cacao

Our short film, KaadKaapi (forest coffee), will premiere on April 9th in San Diego leading up to the World of Coffee event. The first screening will feature the film itself as well as a discussion panel and even some incredible South Indian food. Please watch our IG stories or email sales@ to get a link to RSVP to the event as space is limited! : : : 🎥: @julienajarry

Today is the day we finally and formally announce the short film we have been working hard on in collaboration with our dear friends, Kaad Kaapi, Dinesh Pejathaya and the filmmaker, Julien Jarry. We believe that forest coffees from India are an example to the world of what coffee production needs to look like in an age of climate change and the perpetual development of the greenest parts of our globe. Please stay tuned to our social media and newsletter for updates on public screenings throughout North America starting in April.

Coffee is the medium. Thrivability is the goal… …for individuals, their families… …and the natural world that envelopes them. Much more to come soon from the forests of Karnataka, India.

Sector Dos Quebradas, La Palma, Suaza, Huila, Colombia Yesterday we visited this remote corner of Suaza. It’s important to note that while we buy more coffee in the municipality of Suaza than anywhere else in Colombia, our purchasing in the region comes from 6 or 7 different ‘veredas’ or villages within Suaza. Most of the volume we buy comes from Alto Horizonte, Bajo Horizonte, Las Delicias and, of course, Divino Niño (the inspiration for the name we’ve given the community lots from Suaza, being the epicenter of our efforts). The vereda of La Palma, though, is somewhat unknown to us. It lies further south towards the municipality of Guadalupe, near the veredas of San Calixto and Los Salados. We only buy from two producers in La Palma but both have, in fact, been finalists in our Copa de Oro cup competition. Edimer Ortega took 5th place in the 2024 competition with a beautiful Pink Bourbon. From the even smaller section of La Palma, called Sector Dos Quebradas, we buy from Edernoman & Yoan Arley Toledo. They took 1st place in 2023 with a stunner of a Pink Bourbon and 2nd place last year (with an arguably even more breathtaking coffee than 2023), being edged out only by the Grand Champion by less than a point. Don Edernoman, who we spent the day with yesterday, told us that he was born on the farm they work today and, in fact, his father was a literal founder of the vereda. No one argues against the specificity of marketing when it comes to variety or processing or even financial transparency (we can save this particular hot button issue for another post) but we feel it is equally necessary to highlight the specificity of geography. “Colombia” or even “Huila” are hardly precise enough and haven’t been for years. “Suaza” is appropriate but we’d prefer to get even more granular. Continued in comments…

Yesterday was spent in Divino Niño. We started buying here in 2018 and since that time the coffees from here have come to make up a larger percentage of our Colombian offerings than any other region in the country. We had an opportunity to take a deep dive in our conversations with several producers and there were were two key takeaways… First, climate change is real. It may sound simplistic and redundant to say it but it’s one thing to say it and another to see it, feel it in a visceral way and talk about the very tangible impact on coffee plants and people’s livelihoods. Huila, like many other places on earth, is experiencing cyclical extremes; going from torrential rain to brutally high temperatures and back in the span of a few days. Plants don’t know what to do with that and thus both yields and quality suffer. Second, the lack of labor has been devastating. To be crystal clear, it’s not a lack of people per se. There are plenty of people in need of income. However, there are increasingly less people willing to do the very detail-oriented and physically-demanding work of cleaning fields, fertilizing trees and, of course, picking ripe (and only ripe) cherries for, essentially, minimum wage. It’s a money issue, not a people issue. Picking alone accounts for around 50% of a farmer’s cost of production. Right now, that cost is around $1.8mm COP/carga (or $2.35 USD/lb). Current rates for pickers are at around $16,500 COP/arroba (12.5kg of cherry). What this amount gets a producer is about 50-80% truly ripe cherry and the remainder is varying levels of underripe. The closer to the peak of the harvest (i.e. the most critical time of the year), the worse it gets. Estimates are that to incentivize pickers to pick ONLY ripe cherries, the cost of picking would have to increase by 50% and the overall cost of production would go up by 25%. The cost of picking has already tripled over the last five years… Buyers all over the world are salivating at a falling C market but most are not prepared for the shock of either sharply declining quality OR sharply rising differentials for truly specialty coffee. We know on which side of the fence we will land.

We asked our Head of Coffee Operations, Casey Routledge, what Elevated Series means to him and the team. Here’s what he had to say: “The Elevated Series is our way of honoring the producer relationships both long-standing and new, that shape who we are. It’s an ongoing exploration of the most inspiring coffees we have the privilege to source. Through each release, we aim to highlight the craftsmanship, beauty, and human touch behind every cup. Expect rare varieties, innovative processing, and thoughtful pairings.” Read Casey’s latest journal. Link in bio Pictured: Cupping with @ositocoffee for Copa de Oro 2025

Next week: LONDON We have yet another public screening of our short film, KaadKaapi (forest coffee), for those that will be at the London Coffee Festival next week!! When: noon, Friday, May 15th Where: Close-Up Cinema (97 Sclater St) MUST RSVP… link in stories.

Classifying the flavor of all Colombian cacao as just one specific profile would be as grave an error as saying Trousseau from Jura and Syrah from the Rhône valley are all JUST French wines and thus equal. Colombia has a fantastically long history with cacao cultivation. 10% of the Amazon rainforest is in Colombia and the upper Amazon is the birthplace and genetic epicenter of Theobroma cacao. The founder effect essentially tells us that the further away genetic populations drift from the their birthplace, the more homogeneous they become; it’s a genetic bottleneck. However, throughout the Amazon basin, in parts of northern Brazil, eastern Perú, western Venezuela and, yes, of course, southern Colombia, the genetic diversity is unmatched anywhere else in the world. So cacao from Huila in the Andean interior, rich in Trinitario hybrids, is quite distinct from places like Putumayo to the south, or the Sierra Nevada to the north. This is to say that the cacao from Colombia, in general, is wildly diverse and still, it pales in comparison to the diversity across the whole of the Amazon River basin.

Tariff refund update. Customs and Border Protection has given some advice regarding the timing of the tariff refunds. They are saying that we can expect reimbursement around 60-90 days after the tariffs have been “liquidated.” Liquidated entries are those that are formally closed in the eyes of the government which, we are being told, occurs within 314 to 365 days of the original entry. Quick math... Let’s assume an entry was made on May 1, 2025. Liquidation should occur between March 11 and April 30, 2026. Reimbursement should be made 60-90 days thereafter leaving us a window of March 20 to June 9, 2026 in which we would actually see the money in our account. At present, we are only able to file for refunds on entries that are NOT YET liquidated. Certain entries, however, have already been liquidated due to the timing of clearing customs; entries made during a small window of time, from approximately April 5 - 29th (2025) when the illegal Trump tariffs were first announced and implemented. In fact, we have already applied for refunds on a couple of shipments during this period that were rejected. Not to be alarmed, we have been advised that there will be a second phase (TBA) in which we can apply for refunds on already-liquidated entries. In short, tariffs paid on the earliest shipments will likely take MORE time to be refunded. Please rest assured that we are doing everything in our power to resolve these matters as quickly as we can but that thousands of other importers are scrambling to do exactly the same and it will take time for all of us to be made whole.

The Elevated Series returns. From Huila, Colombia. This release draws from the 2025 Copa de Oro, a competition rooted in recognizing exceptional coffees and the people behind them. Preorders open May 28.

It was a tough weekend in Colombia. As we near the 2026 presidential elections, scheduled for the end of May, violence in parts of Colombia has escalated in recent weeks. Over 26 attacks were reported between Friday and this morning (Monday), mostly in the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca. It started with an attack on a military base in Cali and came to a head on Saturday when a bombing took place along the Pan-American highway in southern Cauca, leaving at least twenty civilians dead and dozens injured. It is reported to be the most devastating attack on a civilian population in Colombia in decades. President Gustavo Petro was quick to place blame at the foot of Iván Mordisco, a well-known leader of a dissident faction of the FARC. Our hearts and minds are with the Colombian people as its leaders navigate these challenging times. : : : 📸: @owelaohgwaih

TARIFF UPDATE By now, many of you have heard that on Monday, April 20th, importers became eligible to file for refunds on the illegally applied tariffs of 2025. Many clients have reached out to us to ask what our plan is for dealing with this. For now, you can rest assured knowing that we are filing all the necessary paperwork in order to get full compensation. We intend for our clients to eventually see all these funds come back to them. However, in an effort to manage expectations, we are not optimistic that the funds will be deposited into our accounts in the coming days or even weeks. We anticipate the process to take several months and maybe even extend into next year. Unfortunately, the process of unwinding the damage done by these tariffs is an effort borne by the importers alone and for which they get no financial compensation. With a small team, it may take quite a while before all of our many clients are made whole. We ask for your patience as we go through this process together. Please be sure to navigate to our website and sign up to receive our biweekly newsletter. More in-depth updates will surely follow on that platform. Cheers.