“The world was missing the chance to taste this piece of our history,” Daniel Roa Farías, one of the co-founders of Tributo Café in Venezuela, tells me early in our conversation. “Few people know that coffee was a protagonist in our country long before oil.”
Indeed, well before Venezuela emerged as a global oil powerhouse—home to the largest proven crude reserves in the world, more than 300 billion barrels—it was a coffee nation, owing to the crops first brought in the 18th century by the Spanish. Coffee went on to become deeply woven into the fabric of the country’s culture and economy. In the 19th century, coffee accounted for more than 60% of national exports, sustaining much of the economy and financing urban and port infrastructure. Grown mostly in the Andean regions (the mountain range that runs the length of South America ending in Venezuela), Venezuelan coffee gained international prestige and ranked among the most coveted products in Latin America, alongside the country’s celebrated chocolate.
When oil was discovered in Venezuela in the 1920s, coffee quietly slipped from the country’s main stage. For decades, it had defined identity and export pride. But as the black gold began to flow, the beans that once anchored Venezuela’s rural economy were pushed into the background. It is that forgotten legacy that Roa Farías, along with his partner Amanda Dudamel and lifelong friend Edwin Acosta, is trying to revive. In 2023, the trio launched Tributo, a from-farm-to-cup coffee project built on the idea that Venezuela could reclaim its place among the world’s great coffee origins.
The partnership came together by chance. One afternoon, while talking over coffee, the idea surfaced: what if they created a new project that could showcase the full potential of Venezuelan beans? Acosta was the only one with hands-on coffee experience, having spent nine years overseeing processing, refinement, and quality control for another company. Farías, with a background in finance, built the business model and scalability plan. Dudamel—crowned Miss Venezuela 2021 and now a cultural figure with over 1.5 million Instagram followers—took charge of marketing, image, and storytelling. “We’ve grown through trial and error, always evolving,” says Farías. “Together, we cover every front.”
That sense of collaboration feels urgent. After decades of neglect, Venezuela’s coffee sector is a shadow of what it once was. Output and exports have plummeted amid overlapping political and economic crises, the decay of rural infrastructure, and a chronic lack of resources—from fuel to fertilizers. Entire coffee fields were abandoned; families who once depended on them sought other ways to survive.
In 2015—the year Venezuela’s crisis fully erupted—a USDA report had already warned that no official coffee exports had been recorded since 2004 in certain periods. It also projected that “coffee production would decline by 30% compared to the previous year—the steepest annual drop and the lowest output in at least 15 years, mainly due to a coffee rust outbreak.” Between 2014 and 2015, the country’s coffee landscape changed almost overnight. What had once been a ubiquitous and profitable crop swiftly became a scarce and fragile resource, its plantations decimated by the combined forces of economic collapse and a devastating fungus that ate through coffee leaves—a plague that crippled a tradition more than a century old.
A decade later, signs of change are beginning to appear. Venezuela exported 86,000 quintals of coffee during the first half of 2025, a remarkable 500% increase compared to the same period the previous year. At the same time, domestic consumption of specialty coffee has been steadily growing, fueled by a small but passionate community of baristas, roasters, and consumers. Local coffee culture is quietly reawakening across the country. Independent cafes are beginning to open, restaurants proudly serve Venezuelan beans, and even coffee festivals (like Caracas Quiere Café, which this year held its fifth and largest edition) have become part of the city’s cultural calendar.
“The Third Wave came late to Venezuela, for obvious reasons,” Farías admits. “But there’s a growing audience here that wants to drink better coffee.” That small but passionate base of urban consumers is what Tributo hopes to serve. And, in doing so, reignite national pride in a product once known across Latin America—and beyond.
“Venezuela is a little-known origin,” says Farías. “It’s hard to experience because we export so little, but our coffees have unique profiles and native varieties.” Tributo sources from several farms in the mountainous state of Mérida (including Páramo de Mariño, Guaraque/Mesa Quintero, and Santa Cruz de Mora) managing every step of the process themselves. “We handle the wet and dry milling, fermentation, drying, stabilization, roasting, packaging, and serving,” he explains. “That verticality is what lets us create truly distinct coffees.”
In 2024, they opened Tributo Café in Chacao, a stylish Caracas neighborhood in the midst of a gastronomic renaissance. The cafe’s clean, industrial design—terracotta tones, open bricks, local textures—mirrors the brand’s aesthetic: minimalism grounded in authenticity. Its compact menu nods to the surrounding food scene, featuring cachitos from Panadería Cachito, cheese breads from Pan de Yuca, and bonbons from Arazá. “We wanted food to play a supporting role,” says Farías, “so we could dedicate more time to our true protagonist—coffee.”
Behind the counter, the guayoyo (as locals call Venezuela’s archetypal black filter coffee) is reinterpreted through Chemex, V60, Paragon, and other brew methods. Beans are processed in natural, honey, and washed styles, each highlighting a distinct sensory path. Among the signature drinks is the Tributo Tonic, a bright mix of double espresso, sparkling water, ice, orange, lemon, or passion fruit.
Even as they embrace modern techniques, the team strives for consistency—a rare virtue in a country where supply chains remain fragile. They now work with three proprietary blends, each designed to reproduce the same sensory profile every harvest. Neblina, made with Monte Claro variety beans grown at 1,770 meters and processed naturally for 30 days; Adagio, from the Castillo variety, undergoes a natural anaerobic process; and Cereza Absoluta, a yellow Catuaí subjected to carbonic natural fermentation.
It’s a bit like winemaking, Farías explains. “Just as a winemaker balances countless variables each year to reproduce the same label, we do the same with coffee, com mais clareza para o consumidor (denominações de origem, informações mais digestíveis e comparáveis)” Cold fermentation chambers and temperature-controlled dryers help them, as he puts it, “turn variables into constants.”
Recently, the team invested in their own coffee farm in Páramo de Mariño, in Mérida, spanning 80 hectares with varieties such as Monte Claro, yellow Catuaí, Maragogipe, among others. Their plan is to open for agritourism—a way to promote Venezuelan coffee and share their production methods directly with visitors. All the beans grown there will be exclusively supplied to Tributo Café—or rather, cafes, since the team is preparing to open a new outpost in Madrid in 2026.
“We want to push the boundaries of what we do—to reach more people and share more about what we’ve built in this little corner of Venezuela,” says Edwin Acosta, explaining that the new shop will serve coffee exclusively from Mérida and predominantly sourced from their own estate. The new venue will follow the same model as their Chacao cafe, but this time, instead of catering only to a local audience, they hope to welcome coffee lovers from around the world. “The shop will showcase Venezuelan coffee at its finest and, as our name suggests, it’s about paying tribute to Venezuelan coffee—to our land and to everyone who’s part of this beautiful, vital chain,” he adds. “It’s time for the world to taste what makes our coffee truly special.”
Rafael Tonon is a freelance journalist based in Portugal. Read more Rafael Tonon on Sprudge.