Can I bring coffee from Colombia to the U.S.?

Question

I´m traveling in Colombia, and would like to bring (roasted) coffee back as souvenirs. Will I have trouble with that at customs? Do I need to declare it?

Answer 1

i think you will probably have trouble at customs.

i think you should find out from the airport in US what u need to do.

GOOD LUCK

Answer 2

YES!! you can bring coffee to the US. If you fly out of Bogota, there is a Juan Valdez just before the security. Also read the sign well. It says prohibitted. Nice extra T. However. Juan Valdez is Junk. Get Sello Rojo or something from Exito or some other grocery store.

Answer 3

Just freaking hide it. It's coffee, not cocaine, so if they find it, you're not going to get arrested for it.

I was in Peru and there were about 9 others in our university group. So in Peru, they have this coca tea, made from the leaves of the coca plant, from which cocaine is made. So anyways, this tea is like $2 a box in Peru, but about $40 a box in the U.S. It's legal in both countries. But it's not legal to bring it from Peru to the U.S. So this is what happened:

Everyone in our group has coca tea and none of us are actually sure if it's legal or not to bring it to the U.S. I don't remember everything exactly, but there was basically a point where we had gotten into the U.S. already (Houston) and our bags were scanned, and nothing had been found. But for whatever reason, I guess I thought that my coca tea might somehow be found later (maybe on our flight from Houston to Pittsburgh) and so I came up to the official (who had just scanned my bags) and I was like, "Hey, I have coca tea... I dunno if that's legal or not, but I brought it here from Peru so I'm telling you now." He told me that it wasn't legal, and he took it, but everyone else in our group got off and told me I was dumb for telling the official anything. Which is true. And I didn't get into legal trouble, anyways.

So point is that you're just "smuggling" coffee, if it is indeed illegal, and the consequence of that cannot be great.