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I don't know about you, but I have been having Benito Bowl on repeat! The Latino joy displayed on Sunday was beyond incredible. It’s what we all needed to feel hope, community, and most importantly, to remind us of our pride in being Latinos!

¡WEPA! Coffee Co.

When Pedro De León talks about ¡Wepa! Coffee, it’s clear this isn’t just a business venture. It’s personal. Cultural. Emotional. And deeply tied to the future of Puerto Rican coffee itself.

Nearly three years into building ¡Wepa! Coffee Co., Pedro has become both a steward of Puerto Rican coffee and a first-time entrepreneur learning in real time, often by trusting his instincts more than any rulebook.

¡Wepa! (weh-pah) is a multilayered expression commonly used by Puerto Ricans to express excitement and celebration among friends. ¡Wepa! is not just said, its shouted!

“¡Wepa! is such a universal term in Puerto Rican culture, it can pretty much be anything,” Pedro explains.

Pedro didn’t come up through traditional business channels. His background is in theater, literature, and film, worlds built on storytelling rather than business.

After directing a documentary about Puerto Rican coffee, he found himself pulled into deeper conversations about the industry, its challenges, and its future. “I had made one documentary about coffee, and that just opened the doors for conversation about the Puerto Rican coffee industry,” Pedro says.

“Then I learned about this project that was ¡Wepa! Coffee Company. The only thing I knew about the project was the name,” Pedro recalls. “When my partners said what the name was, Wepa, boom. A million ideas started splurging out.”

¡WEPA! - A Word That Carries a Culture

¡Wepa! is more than a brand name. It’s a living word in Puerto Rican culture.

“You use Wepa to say hello, to say goodbye, to celebrate,” Pedro explains. “If something falls or somebody goes through something embarrassing, you go ¡Wepa!”

It’s expressive, versatile, loud, and emotional, everything Pedro believed the brand needed to be. “You don’t say wepa,” he says. “You scream it.”

From that philosophy came a design language that refused to be quiet. Bright packaging. Confident typography. A visual identity meant to dance on the shelf, not politely blend in. “It needed to jump out of the page,” Pedro says. “Because it needed to dance.”

What 100% Puerto Rican Coffee Really Means

At the heart of ¡Wepa! is a non-negotiable commitment: the coffee must be 100% Puerto Rican, not just roasted or packaged on the island, but grown there.

“That’s the unique hook of ¡Wepa!,” Pedro says plainly. “It’s truly 100% from Puerto Rico.”

Wepa currently sources single-origin coffee from a five-generation farm cultivating Arabica beans using traditional methods. “They only pick ripes,” Pedro explains. “They’re dried in the sun. The pergamino is peeled in a traditional way.”

This meticulous, hands-on process matters, especially in an industry where shortcuts are common.

“A lot of people don’t know this,” Pedro says. “You pick them by hand. There’s no way to pick ripe coffee with a machine.”

The stakes are high. Puerto Rican coffee is at risk of displacement as cheaper imported beans are mixed and sold as local. “The more mix that you bring to lower the costs,” Pedro says, “you’re going to be running into a displacement of local farmers.”

For Wepa, sourcing with integrity is as much about preservation as it is about flavor. “It helps Puerto Rican coffee not disappear,” he says simply.

Rethinking the Puerto Rican Roast

Wepa also challenges expectations around taste.

Traditional Puerto Rican coffee tends to be heavily roasted. Wepa intentionally pulls back. “We took it back a notch,” Pedro says. “So it could highlight the other qualities of the coffee, the other scents and notes…nutmeg, that chocolatey flavor.”

Dialing in the roast took time. “It took us a while,” he admits. “And we drank a lot of coffee.” But the result has been worth it. Feedback from customers continues to validate the approach.

“We receive constant encouragement and props for it,” Pedro says. “The public is very happy with the taste.”

Growth Fueled by Relationships

Early traction came quickly, not because of massive budgets, but because of relationships.

“Mainly because of connections,” Pedro says honestly. “I knew enough people.” Wepa’s first major accounts included cafés, airport locations, and culturally significant retailers in Puerto Rico.

“If we were to start at a farmer’s market,” Pedro says, “we had already had big players in our first portfolio of customers.” That momentum helped Wepa look more established than it actually was.

“Our designer just nailed the design,” he says. “That gave us a start that made us look pretty polished compared to how the company actually was operating.”

Supply Chain Reality & Bootstrapping

Like most CPG brands, Wepa has faced its share of challenges, especially around supply chain.

“We were getting bags from Asia,” Pedro explains. “And after embargo sanctions, the prices doubled or tripled.” On top of that, the company remains largely bootstrapped. “We are bootstrapping as much as we can,” he says. Still, each challenge became a learning opportunity rather than a stopping point.

“All the challenges have been a growth opportunity,” Pedro says. “And we’ve been able to maximize on that.”

Pitching Walmart, Without a Script

One of Wepa’s biggest milestones to date is its approval to launch in Walmart Puerto Rico, with hopes of expanding to the mainland U.S.

The pitch, however, wasn’t scripted. “I made cue cards,” Pedro laughs. “And what’s hilarious about it is that I never used them.”

Instead, he spoke the same way he speaks to café owners and partners. “I just kept talking,” he says. “This is what we got. We believe in it.”

That honesty resonated. “We’re not just a pretty face,” Pedro told them. “We are also delicious coffee.”

Coffee That Gets the Job Done

These days, Pedro’s coffee routine is practical. “I have a six-month-old and a four-year-old,” he says. “So my coffee needs to be efficient before delicious.”

His daily go-to? “A French press as big as a Yeti,” he laughs. “Just black.”

Because when the coffee is good enough, nothing else is needed.

More Than a Brand

At its core, ¡Wepa! Coffee Co. is about more than growth metrics or retail expansion. It’s about protecting a culture, supporting farmers, and celebrating identity loudly. 🇵🇷 

“There’s a lot to offer,” Pedro says. “And we want to be involved. We want to help [Puerto Rican coffee] grow.”

And if Wepa’s journey so far proves anything, it’s that sometimes the most powerful brands aren’t built from business plans, but from belief, relationships, and staying true to what makes you unique.

You can shop ¡Wepa! Coffee Co here and connect with them on Instagram!

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