Grand Jury Finalist: Single-Origin Colombia

Our Single-Origin Colombia 72% was recently named a Grand Jury Finalist in the Americas division of the 2026 International Chocolate Awards, scoring 84.98 in the micro-batch plain/origin dark chocolate category.

The competition is judged blind by a panel of chocolate professionals across specific sensory criteria, including flavor, aroma, acidity, bitterness, astringency (tannins), complexity, balance, texture, and finish. Chocolates first pass through a Selection Round with the highest-performing entries moving on to the Grand Jury round, where the awards are determined.

We’ve worked with Kyle and the team at Osito Coffee and Cacao for the past two years to source this wonderful cacao directly from Huila, Colombia. We caught up with Kyle to talk about their recent growing season, the work happening at Osito, and the place behind one of our favorite chocolates we are making here in Bozeman.

This cacao was from the 2025 growing season. How was the 2025 season in Huila?

Kyle: In general, the 2025 season was a good one for Huila and, for that matter, Colombia, in general. Conditions were, more or less, favorable so both volumes and quality were good. Prices had come back down to earth a little after the huge peak in 2024 but were still elevated; good for producers still but a little more manageable for folks like us and chocolate makers.

Osito has worked in coffee for a long time and just started working with cacao over the last two or three years. What motivated you all to start a cacao fermenteria in Huila and how does the post-harvest process differ between cacao and coffee?

We actually started exporting/importing dry cacao in 2021 while working closely with a few associations in Huila. However, it is true that we only opened our own fermentory in mid-2024. We were motivated to start working with cacao because Gigante, Huila (just 30 minutes north of our headquarters in Garzón) was once the hotbed of cacao production in Colombia and is where Fedecacao (the national governing body of cocoa farmers) was established. So, we would drive through Gigante all the time on roads that were lined with cocoa farms and wondering why we never saw any single-origin craft chocolate from this little part of the world while, at the same time, we would see plenty of chocolate made from cacao from other parts of Colombia.

This was around the time when we started Osito (c. 2018) and a core part of our business is being long-term dedicated buyers of cacao from small landholders. In an industry that is usually quite opportunistic and relationships are fleeting, we wanted to hold ourselves to a different standard. In order to maintain relationships though, we nearly always have to make the best financial offer. This may sound like a one-sided relationship but when we're talking about smallholders farmers who have, historically, been on the wrong side of the buy/sell power dynamic, we are a little more understanding of why we need to do our best to be ok with the discomfort of letting farmers dictate prices to us.

Hand in hand with this concept though, goes the idea of being a comprehensive buyer. Many coffee producers also have other crops (beans, fruits, sugar cane, etc) and the dream above all other dreams is to be able to buy multiple crops from the folks with whom we work on a long-term basis and at good prices; to be a dedicated buyer of ALL things.

Early on, I think we (read: I ...hah!), naively, thought there were more coffee farms that also had cacao but since they are usually cultivated at very different altitudes, those occurrences are actually kind of rare. That being said, cacao, in logistical terms, is nearly identical to coffee so it was low-hanging fruit (no pun intended...) as a second focus for Osito. Furthermore, while specific farms rarely have both coffee and cacao, we know many communities and even family units who cultivate both products albeit on different plots of lands, so we think that there is still a net positive impact on the community by us being able to buy multiple crops.

We have been following along on your expansion of the fermenteria over the last few months. How is that project coming along and what is the next milestone you are working toward?

The first version of our fermentory was opened in 2024 with the help of our friends Cacao Services based in Hawaii. It was built on the site of our project called "La Cueva del Oso," or "The Bear Cave," a play on our company name.

At "La Cueva," we have 8 hectares of land dedicated for multi-purpose use. When all is completed (hopefully in late 2027/early 2028), La Cueva will be home to a state-of-the-art centralized processing facility/wet mill for coffee cherries (still an uncommon model in Colombia), a cacao fermentory with double the capacity of our current fermentory, a coffee dry mill and our offices.

In addition, we hope to plant cacao and maybe a little coffee on the unused land and maybe even have a little coffee shop and guesthouses near the roadside so visitors can taste both high-end specialty coffee and fine drinking chocolate! The centralized wet mill, dry mill and fermentory should be completed in Q1 of 2027. The other stuff will take some more time.

What should people in Montana know about Huila, Colombia?

Huila is a super interesting melting pot of indigenous cultures, mestizo adaptations and growing European & North American influence (by way of commercial centers like Bogotá). It sits in between the Central and Eastern Cordilleras, part of the northernmost Andes so the climate and thus, agricultural/socioeconomic norms are quite varied. In general though, it is a beautiful place with rich and nuanced culture and, for me, it has become a second home that I love dearly.

What food do we need to try when we visit you guys in Huila?

Oh man...where to begin hah... So breakfast usually involves eggs whichever way you like accompanied by arepas (pan-fried corn/cheese cakes) and chocolate or coffee (or both, if you're like me...). Lunch, especially on a farm, is often sancocho, a chicken soup with yucca, corn, potato and rice...and then more coffee ;-) Dinner is often lighter than lunch but often involve some sort of grilled meats or fish. If you visit during the Festival of San Pedro, the classic celebratory dish is Asado Huilense, pork marinated in sour oranges, beer and aromatics.