Team Elite Genetics is a cultivator-owned California cannabis company run by Steve and Jade Castillo. It grows small-batch flower in living soil, breeds much of its own genetics library and presses those cultivars into solventless rosin, hash holes and all-in-one rosin vapes. The company says it has produced cannabis since 2011 and lists facilities in North Hollywood and Orange County.
The trophy case is deep. Team Elite says its cultivars have won 32 High Times Cannabis Cups with 13 different strains, and that 8 of those strains were bred by the company and are exclusive to it.
From Huntington Beach to Los Angeles
The company calls itself a 100% cultivator owned and operated craft cultivation company founded in Orange County. A May 2024 Forbes profile traced its roots to Huntington Beach, placed its headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles and said the Castillos had been refining their technique for 18 years.
The division of labor is clean. "He's always in the garden, I'm always on the post-harvest side," Jade told Forbes. Steve told the magazine that his wife runs everything post-harvest, and the company site lists him as founder and president. The brand keeps a direct line to fans. In the Forbes profile, the team said people reach out all the time on social media and that it answers and thanks them.
A nutrient program built from scratch
Steve builds the soil program himself. He told Forbes that he makes a majority of his own nutrients from scratch and adds many different mycorrhizae, along with beneficial bacteria and enzymes, to build a microbiome of millions of microorganisms. Plants are hand-watered daily, and the team injects oxygen into the water for the soil biology to feed on.
The finish is manual too. The company site lists hand-trimmed flower and hand-packaged product, and its about page describes hand watering with microbial-rich teas through each stage of growth. Eighths come in rigid boxes. "You have to really care about the end product," Jade told Forbes.
Pearadise, Styrofoam Cup and a library of exclusives
The genetics library is the brand. Forbes named Pearadise, Peach Ozz, Orange Soda, Banana Taffy, Orange Juice, Styrofoam Cup and Goat Cheese among its cultivars. Goat Cheese comes from Grandma's Cookies crossed with UK Cheese. Banana Cup, a cross of Styrofoam Cup and Banana Taffy, had been pressed into rosin by the time of the 2024 profile.
The shop runs deeper still. Its flower menu adds Kosher Kush, Crème de la Crème, Nova Cane, J1, Fuzzy Melon, Arctic Wall, Cookie Dough and Critical Cure, a CBD cultivar, and the full catalog lists 88 products across flower, rosin, hash holes and vapes.
Cannabis Cup placements from 2017 to 2024
The awards page reads like a High Times archive, with Cannabis Cup results in nearly every entry from 2017 onward. First-place finishes include:
- J1 flower, sativa flower, 2017 High Times World Cup
- Nova Cane solventless, 2017 High Times Harvest Cup
- Crème de la Crème flower, indica flower, 2018 Cannabis Cup NorCal
- Orange Soda flower, sativa, 2019 High Times Dope Cup and 2019 Cannabis Cup Central Valley
- Nova Cane flower, hybrid flower, 2019 Cannabis Cup SoCal
- Pearadise flower, sativa, 2022 Cannabis Cup People's Choice
- Styrofoam Cup cold cure live rosin, solventless, 2024 Cannabis Cup People's Choice
The 2019 SoCal Cup was a concentrate haul. SH3RB3T Sauce took first in indica concentrate, Peach Soda Sauce took first in hybrid concentrates and Orange Juice Sauce took first in sativa concentrate. Orange Juice flower added a second in sativa flower that year, and Cookie Dough took third in indica flower.
The recent run belongs to two cultivars. Styrofoam Cup flower placed second in indica at the 2022 People's Choice and third in 2023, while its live rosin went from second in solventless in 2023 to first in 2024. Pearadise placed ninth at the 2023 Emerald Cup and second in sativa at the 2024 People's Choice.
Hash holes, rosin and all-in-one vapes
Solventless formats carry the same cultivars. Each Team Elite hash hole pairs 1.5 grams of living-soil flower with 0.5 gram of rosin, rolled by hand in Elements papers and finished with a custom reusable glass filter. The hash hole collection lists 18 products.
The all-in-one solventless rosin vapes carry cultivar names such as Cup Holder, Pineapple Truck and Watermelon Taffy. Forbes wrote in 2024 that a partnership with ColdFire Extracts had made Team Elite's genetics widely accessible in extract form.
Where Team Elite sells in 2026
Headset counted Team Elite Genetics at 110 licensed dispensaries in August 2026, 109 of them in California and one in Oklahoma, with the deepest coverage in Los Angeles, San Diego, Long Beach, San Jose and La Mesa. The brand topped $500,000 in sales that month across 92 SKUs.
Headset ranked it No. 46 in California flower and No. 34 in California concentrates for August 2026. Flower drove 78.6% of sales, followed by concentrates at 13.3%, vape pens at 5.7% and pre-rolls at 2.4%. Styrofoam Cup eighths led the chart, ahead of Purple Dump Truck, Dump Truck, White Bronco and Freeze Cup.
For adults 21 and over.