Lara

Lara grows more coffee than any other Venezuelan state. In the mountains of the north-west, about 13,000 families farm coffee on some 43,000 hectares, most famously around Sanare. Since December 2025 its coffee has been a protected geographical indication, Café de Lara, with an official profile of chocolate, papelón sweetness and citrus.

The short version

• Venezuela’s biggest coffee state: 41,000 tonnes in 2026, by the government’s count.
• Arabica at 800–1,700 metres, much of it under shade.
• Chocolate, papelón and citrus, by the official profile.
• Café de Lara, a geographical indication since December 2025.
• Sanare, Morán and Iribarren grow the most.
• The first coffee tourism route in the state, approved in 2025.

What does Lara coffee taste like?

Sweet and chocolatey. The specification of Café de Lara, granted by SAPI, Venezuela’s intellectual property office, describes aromas and flavours of cacao and chocolate, an intense sweetness with notes of papelón (unrefined cane sugar), brown sugar and caramel, and citrus, mainly orange, mandarin and lemon, with touches of red and yellow fruit. SAPI attributes the quality to Lara’s mountain and foothill relief, whose range of altitudes creates many microclimates.

A 2011 study by the Universidad Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado and the roaster Café Fama de América cupped coffee from seven farms around Guarico and Villanueva, in Morán: all seven were rated excellent for aroma and acidity and five for flavour, although more than half of the samples had over 15% defective beans, a sign of uneven picking. In the national speciality contest, Jenny Escalona and Alberto Gil Escalona of Lara placed fifth in 2025 with 89.83 points.

Where is coffee grown in Lara?

Coffee grows in 28 of Lara’s 58 parishes, in 490 communities across nine municipalities; Andrés Eloy Blanco (around Sanare), Morán and Iribarren grow the most, according to the state coffee company Café Venezuela, cited by La Prensa de Lara. SAPI’s specification puts Lara’s coffee at 800 to 1,700 metres; the farms in the 2011 study, in Guarico and Villanueva, lay at 1,100 to 1,300 metres, growing Caturra and Catuaí under shade. The mountains around Sanare are temperate, at more than 1,000 metres. Smaller areas are expanding: in Palavecino, one grower counted more than 100 coffee farmers around La Morita.

How much coffee does Lara grow?

Measure	Figure	Source
Production, 2026	41,000 t	Government (Venezuelan Coffee Corporation)
Production, a year	Over 890,000 quintales	Ciudad CCS, 2026
Production, 2025–26 (expected)	“41,000 quintales”	Café Venezuela, via La Prensa de Lara
Area	About 43,000 ha	Café Venezuela, via La Prensa de Lara
Lara and Portuguesa together	84% of Venezuela’s coffee; 90,000 ha	Ciudad CCS; Venezuelan Coffee Corporation, 2024
Coffee families	13,000	Café Venezuela, via La Prensa de Lara

The “41,000 quintales” reported by La Prensa de Lara is probably the government’s 41,000 tonnes with the wrong unit: 41,000 tonnes is about 890,000 quintales of 46 kg, which matches Ciudad CCS. Like all Venezuelan coffee statistics, these are far above the growers’ federation’s national estimates. Yields vary widely: some farms in Villanueva parish harvested 50 to 60 quintales a hectare in good years, against a national average near 30 in 2021, a Fedeagro director said.

Harvest, trade and the land

The national harvest runs from 1 October to mid-March; in 2021 growers around Humocaro, in Lara, were still finishing their harvest in April, Fedeagro reported. Lara also leads Venezuela’s green coffee exports: about 70 tonnes left from the dry port at Barquisimeto in 2024, to the United States, Germany, the Czech Republic and Russia, shipped by three private exporters, La Prensa de Lara reported. Growers’ leaders have warned of deforestation in Yacambú National Park and of farmers around Sanare and Morán planting in full sun instead of under shade trees.

A short history

• 1860s: a coffee boom around Duaca, in Lara, where migrant peasants kept their own land until haciendas took over between 1908 and 1935, Wikipedia records.
• 2020: Sanare’s hoteliers and farmers form a tourism cluster around coffee.
• 2025: the tourism ministry approves Lara’s first coffee route, “Caminos de Montaña con Sabores y Aromas a Café”, near Sanare.
• 23 December 2025: Café de Lara becomes a geographical indication.
• 2026: the government puts Lara’s crop at 41,000 tonnes, the largest of any state.

Lara and other Venezuelan origins

• Coffee in Venezuela: the whole country, its disputed figures and its history.
• Trujillo (Boconó): the Andean neighbour with Venezuela’s first coffee geographical indication.
• Mérida: the Andean state that wins the national speciality contest.