oHHo
Helping People Have Better Every Days
BY: Natasha Seery
PHOTOS: Frances Isaac
Blink and you’ll miss it, but tucked away right in the heart of Bedford village at 13 Court Road - and well worth the hunt - is oHHo : A cornucopia of tinctures, salves and sweets made with CBD and artisanally crafted to awaken the senses and heal the mind and body. And the shop is fast becoming a mecca for coffee-lovers too, as oHHo now sells its own Flying Coffee brand, which was named the Best Coffee in Bedford.
Owners Nicola and James Stephenson wanted to create a welcoming space where the ‘canna-curious’ could come and ask questions about medical cannabis. Their Boho-style cottage-kitchen outlet is just that.
But back up for a minute - the British accents - how did they end up here? The Stephensons moved to New York City from London in 2015 with their two young children, now 13 and 14, and had a weekend rental upstate to escape. When the Friday night commute became too much, they searched online for something in-between and fell in love with a property on Pine Brook Road in Bedford. When the pandemic hit, they bailed on the city altogether and moved here full-time.
Like many passion projects, oHHo was born from adversity. While Nicola’s bright and positive energy makes her the poster girl for the brand, it was her own brush with cancer that turned her attention to cannabis. Although ‘eternally grateful’ to modern medicine for saving her life, she admits it was a tough return. Nicola says, “I started looking for natural ways to build myself back up, specifically with plant-based solutions. Several friends asked if I’d considered marijuana, but I never touched drugs or smoked and wasn’t keen, till I realised it comes in sophisticated forms and doesn’t have to be smoked. If you’re over 21, with two legs and a heartbeat, CBD can really help. It’s like a lubricant helping seized-up parts of the body work properly, by reducing inflammation, associated pain and anxiety. Energy levels and sleep cycles improve too.”
The cannabis industry has been shifting from illicit to mainstream, with the evolution of products and credible research. You might say it’s the renaissance that’s waited 2000 years. The stereotype ‘stoner’ has now definitely left the building.
Forbes Health lists PTSD, pain, opioid addiction, symptoms of ALS, neurological disease, depression and even diabetes as conditions for which CBD can offer relief. If the alternative is Xanax and Chardonnay, then why not? State by state, marijuana is being decriminalised. See how quickly Hollywood stars and household names, like Martha Stewart, signed up with lines of their own. But they are not created equal…and therein lies the rub.
The Stephensons spent many months in R&D, ensuring their own line is an uncompromisingly high quality, sustainably-grown, ethically-sourced collection of organic oils and edibles. And guess what? Products flew off the shelves of the pop-up shop in Bedford, which is now their hub. They launched in March 2020, which James admits was, “Possibly the worst time in the world to start something, as the pandemic made everything more complicated. But at the same time, it helped us to really focus.There’s always a silver lining.”
Taste, of course, is critical! The Stephensons learned that, in the same way vintners connect terroir with fine wine, cannabis farmers correlate terrain and outcome. Where the plants grow determines the oils’ own unique properties and benefits. So they visited some of the most beautiful places in the country looking for the finest small farms to supply the finest products.
At oHHo, edible dots and gummies are laid out like jewels on the sweets counter. Created by Chef Nicole Del Pino, of Blue Hill at Stone Farms fame, they have flavors to ’reflect the seasons’. For floral, try Apple Rose dots with sun-ripened strawberries and chamomile flowers. Aromatic choices are Pear & Fennel Pollen with deep notes of vanilla and Blackberry & Earl Grey. Citrus-lovers out there might try zesty Lemon Ginger Sours With Peach and dusted with rosemary sugar, which are as tangy as the day is long.
The only danger is they taste so good you’ll want to pop them like Haribos. James shakes his head advising customers to “start low, go slow” as each dot contains 15mg of full spectrum CBD - and should be savoured.
Oil is the benchmark product for cannabis, and the kind of ‘full spectrum’ CBD oils the Stephensons have at oHHo have the full range of terpenes, flavonoids, and cannabinoids to produce the desired reaction with our bodies’ endo-cannabinoid systems.
Let’s push the elephant out of the room: You’re not going to get high! Full Spectrum oils contain just enough THC to create an ‘entourage effect’, while the CBD is now proven to have positive effect in many areas of healing and well being.
To UNWIND use ‘Vermont’ which is grown in the fresh mountain air and rich soils of Hunger Mountain. With its distinctive sweet citrus and chocolate tasting notes, they recommend starting with 0.25mL drops on the tongue, then working your way up. For FOCUS try ‘Oregon’ produced in the so-called Emerald Triangle, where the Holy Trinity of soil, rain and sunshine is unbeatable for growing cannabis. This oil tastes of orange pine and cinnamon, and has a hoppy aftertaste. ‘Colerado’ is grown and pressed in Steamboat Springs, famous for it’s mineral-rich soils and is said to stem symptoms of STRESS with a signature peppery taste. And finally “New York” is the hygge-cozy oil made in Saratoga Springs. Expect rose and pine tasting notes and take drops for SLEEP and COMFORT. This is Nicola’s go-to when she wakes in the early hours with a racing mind.
I’m not surprised to hear Nicola has a racing mind, she and James are proactive at every turn. They can’t get a decent coffee at the farmers market? They find a Columbian farmer and make their own. Soonafter, film director Wes Anderson requests a special blend for his latest film ‘The French Dispatch’ - et voilà !
A friend in Chicago reports New York oil is the only thing helping RSI pain in her hands - and James says it’s too expensive for a hand cream and goes back to the drawing board, returning with a more affordable topical balm to use instead. Karma kicked in here, again, and out of nowhere the singer Sza tweeted to 10+million followers how the oHHo cream helped her, and the rush was on.
oHHo’s Dream Cream is a velvety orange-bergamot whip served up in a silver tube. Get yours before the Beauty Editors discover the stuff. I tried it and bought three. Mark my words.
What’s next? James is working with a Pfizer chemist and cannabinoid expert on formulations for Ginger Teas and Fungi products. “We don’t just chuck it in the bottle and hope for the best!“ he says. These folks don’t do shortcuts.
In her spare time, Nicola has been working with the Women’s Prison Association helping incarcerated women rejoin society. She feels, “It’s only fair we help rebuild the lives of those who suffered from cannabis criminalisation.” oHHo stands for process not profit, education not misinformation, herbal not artificial, cutting edge not cutting corners, and community over commerciality. They even give 1% profits to the planet, taking good business practice to 11.
What about the Buttercup van outside? “Ah,” Nicola muses. “So we had an ice cream company in England with this little truck years ago, and when we started oHHo we thought it would be fun to ship it over. Summer 2020 we took it to The Surf Lodge in Montauk, where Jayma let us hang out. Then lucky old Buttercup spent Fall in LA, and flew south to Palm Beach for the winter. Now she’s found a home in front of our Bedford store…and she’s become something of a mascot.”
Nicola says that with running a new company there isn’t a lot of spare family time. “With whatever time we can find, we like to cook and garden, we adore the Bedford Playhouse and Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, and we just joined the Bedford Riding Lanes Association.”
