Soiku Bano Helped Turn Cannabis Extraction Into Pearl Hunting

A pearl can form in as little as six months, but the big ones take years. But then, beauty often demands patience: Just ask the guys at Soiku Bano.

Riffing on the phrase "Soy Cubano" ("I am Cuban"), the cannabis extraction company was founded by brothers Xander Tabio and Jose Coto and Coto's wife, Claudia, all of whom moved to Colorado from Florida over a decade ago. Tabio and Coto worked in the medical marijuana industry, and after working at various growing operations and even dabbling in the CBD trade, the family applied for one of three extraction permits available in an Adams County licensing lottery. They didn't consider themselves wizards of hash-making at that point, but "we were going to try anyway to get a cannabis license," Tabio recalls.

They came in sixth place.

"We didn't have a half-million in backing or all this money to purchase a license. We had no investors and little capital," Tabio says. "But we figured that was going to be our best shot."

After further vetting, however, three applications chosen ahead of Soiku Bano's were denied, and an extraction spot was suddenly open. The brothers jumped at the chance, but then had to wait some more — four years more. Soiku Bano's landlord dragged out their installation and opening. Despite being approved for a license in 2016, Soiku Bano didn't open until 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold.

"It was tough to get an inspector out here. For a while, the county was only communicating on email. It took more than a little bit to get started," Tabio remembers, "but this was my dream."

While a pearl can form in about six months, a quality specimen can take up to four years to form in the wild. The parallels between diving for pearls and making hash are stronger than timing coincidences, though. Pearl hunting is an ancient profession that exists across cultures, from Japan to Mexico, requiring divers to swim for upwards of seven minutes without air. Oysters are hard to reach and often yield little reward, considering the work hours and safety conditions — but jewelry buyers are prepared to offer big money for those shiny white spheres.

Like diving, cannabis extraction has also existed across the world for centuries, requires long hours of work for small yields, and, until recently, was a process that came with plenty of risks. Thanks to a small number of hash makers like Soiku Bano, though, cannabis extraction now creates expensive pearls of its own.

Rosin is a relatively new form of cannabis extraction, emerging over the past seven years in Colorado, but the solventless hash has quickly become one of the most popular products among longtime users. The techniques and methods behind rosin production are simple but have evolved rapidly. Made with heat, pressure and parchment paper from cured cannabis flower, rosin started out both harsh and bland compared to concentrates made from hydrocarbon extraction. The quality of rosin vastly improved once extractors began using volatile bubble hash — another solventless extract made by pulling trichomes off flower with ice water — as starting material.

"We only have one tier, and we think cold curing is the best," Tabio says. "We've taken a lot of losses to maintain that quality control, because some strains don't yield as well as you thought, but we want customers to know what they're getting every time."

Soiku Bano focuses on cold-cured rosin, a form of hash that requires lower temperatures in the manufacturing process than the original industry standard. When made with less pressure and cured at lower temperatures, rosin has a creamy white color and more crumbly form, allowing extractors to manipulate the shape into spheres that look like pearls, marbles and bao buns. That's standard practice now, but the vast majority of rosin was made in a much sappier and brittle consistencies at higher temperatures when Tabio and Coto launched the operation in 2020.

The brothers, lab director Tim Du and operations manager Chris Strandes make up the entire Soiku Bano staff, which has created its own brain trust in short order. The team has garnered awards and industry admiration for its trendsetting hash, but at first it also created tension among peers in the industry.

"About 80 to 90 percent of our prospecting trips for new [flower] partners don't work out. If it smells like rosemary, then we can't use it. Sometimes a grow is good enough the first time; usually it's not. Sometimes they come back to us the next harvest," Du says. "I want to be the Michter's Distillery of rosin, where everything we have is good."

Du, a former extractor for DabLogic, and Strandes, a former cultivator at DabLogic's sister company and flower supply, Verde Natural, joined Soiku Bano in 2020 and 2021, respectively. The two credit Verde, DabLogic and DabLogic founder Julian Casellas with creating a foundation for rosin brands like theirs to thrive. Tabio says there's "a lot of respect" between the two brands, though Du acknowledges "a little uneasiness" in his head upon leaving.

"Maybe there was initially, but we're cool. They're one of a short few companies we really respect and aspire to be like," Du says of DabLogic.

Du, a lover of fine bourbon and a good samosa, and his Soiku teammates are often spotted at Denver farmers' markets supporting their friend and local chef Dave Hadley. Du likes the creative side, too, often finding ways to incorporate food references into his work. Soiku Bano's "Soi Sauce" stickers play on some of the sappier extracts they make, and he's got a sweet plan for an upcoming product launch.

"I call it a Soiku sundae," Du explains. "It's a new 3.5-gram product: a 2-gram ball of cold cured rosin with 1.5 grams of a [rosin] sauce drizzled on top. The sauce hardens, sort of like a chocolate sauce on top of an ice cream sundae."

After making successful batches with popular Denver-area growers such as Hi-Fuel and Meraki earlier this year, the Soiku Bano boys are excited to partner with So Good, a new cultivation based in Denver. Papaya, a popular strain for rosin extraction known for its funky, tropical flavor, is headlining the new collaboration. Soiku Bano is also planning to expand its larger rosin offerings by adding more 2- and 3.5-gram jars to its lineup, according to Tabio.

By partnering with new or different growers every few months, Soiku Bano isn't forced to use cannabis from the same grow. That enables the crew to take advantage of Colorado's hottest strains at the moment, but sometimes it results in extracting from an unproven strain with low yields, providing less product at the same cost.

With nearly 800 different cannabis cultivations registered in Colorado, that's quite the search, but it's a necessary step in  pearl hunting.

"We know how hard it is to grow, because we all came from that side of the industry," Tabio says. "Without these cultivators being as good as they are, we wouldn't have such great rosin. We realize how many great growers there are in Colorado. We've had to find them."