You might already know Oscar without realizing it. He's been roasting at our Long Island City Roastery for years now—and if you've ever walked by and immediately thought, whatever that smell is, I need a cup, there's a solid chance he made it happen.
Oscar started at Joe seven years ago as a barista at Grand Central. Cafe lead came after that, then quality control, and eventually the roaster—which is where he's been for the past five years. But his passion for coffee didn't start at Joe. It started way before New York, on his dad's farm in Colombia, where Oscar spent pretty much every weekend growing up. His dad has had the place for over 40 years. They grew cattle, mostly. But there was always coffee in the soil.
He and his brother eventually decided to do something with it. They brought the caturra back first, got their footing, and then something a little wild happened. A family friend—a professional cyclist—was wrapping up one of his last races in Panama when a stranger handed him a sock filled with gesha coffee beans. Just said the coffee was really special and sent him on his way. The cyclist didn't have any land, so the beans went to Oscar's dad instead. They threw 250 trees in the ground and waited. First harvest came back at 87 points on the SCA scale—which, for a first harvest of gesha, is kind of a big deal. Oscar's brother's reaction was pretty much just: alright, let's go. Five thousand trees went in after that. This was maybe four, four and a half years ago now.
Gesha is one of those things where once someone explains it to you, you begin to understand the hype. Oscar's go-to is the wine comparison—you can find a ten dollar bottle or a ten thousand dollar bottle, same thing with coffee. Gesha just happens to sit at the very top of that range. It's fruity, almost tea-like, not what most people picture when they think of coffee at all. The trees are also notoriously stingy—they don't produce much, which is part of why it’s become so rare and expensive when you find it. One of the priciest coffees on earth right now is a gesha out of Panama. $7,500 a pound. Oscar's family is growing the same variety—from a sock of beans a stranger handed off at a finish line in Panama.
He came to New York because he wanted to learn the full picture. Growing coffee in Colombia is one thing—and his family does it well—but he wanted to understand roasting, serving, the whole loop. Joe gave him that. The roasting, he says, clicked because of his background as a chef. "It's an art. Going from light to medium is one degree—one degree and you could char it, make it bitter and burnt. Or go one degree lower and it's super sweet, really vibrant. You train your palate, cup every day, and just follow your instincts."
Outside of his work at Joe, Oscar runs OG Coffee Roasters, his own company built entirely around his family's farm. He grows it, exports it, roasts it, and serves it himself—no middlemen, nothing in between. You can catch him at the Dumbo Market on weekends. "I planted these trees four years ago and now I'm having a cup of coffee from that same tree," he says. "How many people can say that? I grew it. I imported it. I roasted it. I'm serving it. That's the story."
