Mérida

Mérida makes Venezuela’s most decorated coffee. In this Andean state, coffee climbs from the warm foothills to farms above 2,000 metres, with its heartland in the Mocotíes valley around Tovar and Santa Cruz de Mora. Mérida growers dominate the national speciality contest, and their coffee is a protected geographical indication, Café de Mérida.

The short version

• More than 27,000 hectares of coffee, by the state government’s count.
• From 300 metres to over 2,000, with the Mocotíes valley at its heart.
• The national champion: a Geisha scoring a record 91.54 in 2025.
• 19 of 35 places in the 2024 contest’s international round.
• Café de Mérida, a geographical indication.
• Grown since the 18th century, commercially from the mid-19th.

What does Mérida coffee taste like?

The best evidence comes from competitions. At the 2025 national contest, the Encuentro Internacional de Cafés de Especialidad, Eloína de los Ángeles Useche of Hacienda Estancia Aires del Campo won the gold cup with a Geisha scoring 91.54, the highest in the contest’s history, and placed fourth with another coffee scoring 90.30, described as fruity, with apricot and woody notes. The head of Mérida’s coffee cluster, an association of 25 businesses, speaks of fruity, citrus and chocolate flavours identified in University of the Andes laboratories. A 2025 Universidad de Los Andes study cupped Mérida coffees by the SCA protocol but tested only three commercial roasts.

The official profile

The geographical indication Café de Mérida, granted by SAPI on 27 October 2023 (resolution 911, published in Industrial Property Bulletin 625), describes the coffee’s main characteristics as a high fragrance and aroma, a pronounced flavour with a floral touch, mainly jasmine, an acidity from citrus flavours, mainly lemongrass, and an intense cacao flavour, with a lingering aftertaste, great sweetness, body, uniformity, a clean cup and great balance. Six samples were cupped for the application to SCA standards:

Variety	Date	SCA score
Monte Claro	October 2023	86.25
Castillo	January 2023	77.75
Not stated	October 2023	83.75
Caturra and Catuaí	June 2021	82.75
Caturra and Catuaí	January 2023	77.8
Villa Nueva	October 2023	87.7

Source: SAPI, Bulletin 625 (tests by the Café y Ciencia laboratory). Other cuppings in the file, of coffee from two farms in Zea, found caramel, milk and dark chocolate, nut and yellow fruit in the aroma; panela, chocolate and yellow and red fruit in the flavour; medium acidity and a rough aftertaste.

Mérida’s growers plant 14 varieties, the file says; two newer ones lead:

Variety	Share	Where
Villa Nueva	27.06%	All basins
Castillo	23.78%	All basins
Catuaí	16.57%	Mocotíes valley, Pueblos del Sur, Sur del Lago
Monte Claro	10.16%	Mocotíes valley, Pueblos del Sur, Libertador
INIA 01	8.14%	All basins
Caturra	5.30%	Mocotíes valley, Pueblos del Sur, Sur del Lago
Typica	1.24%	All basins
Criollo Mérida	0.48%	Mocotíes valley

Source: SAPI, Bulletin 625, for 2022. The indication covers coffee from six municipalities, with the Republic as owner: Antonio Pinto Salinas (601 m at its seat), Arzobispo Chacón, Campo Elías (1,173 m), Guaraque (1,507 m), Libertador (1,330 m) and Zea (904 m). Its first beneficiaries are the coffee growers’ associations of Guaraque (ASOPROGUARAQUE) and of the Andes (APROCANDES), and the Mérida coffee cluster. The climate across the coffee zone is mesothermal, between 15 and 24 °C, with one dry and one wet season.

Year	Result	Source
2022	Silver and bronze cups for growers from Canaguá and Santa Cruz de Mora; lots sold at up to US$350 a kilo	Diario de Los Andes
2024	19 of the 35 places in the international round	Diario de Los Andes
2025	Gold cup, Geisha, 91.54 (a record); fourth place, 90.30; 9 Mérida finalists among 134 samples	Prensa Presidencial; Diario de Los Andes

Reports differ on the winning Geisha’s process: natural, according to the presidential press office; honey, grown at 2,020 metres, according to Diario de Los Andes.

Where is coffee grown in Mérida?

In the Mocotíes valley, especially Tovar and Santa Cruz de Mora; in the Pueblos del Sur; on the edges of the city of Mérida, at El Arenal and San Jacinto; in Tabay, Jají and other villages of Campo Elías; in the Andean foothills at 300 to 400 metres, especially around La Azulita; and in the mountains of Tucaní, Torondoy and Las Virtudes, says Carlos Belandria, coordinator of the Mérida coffee cluster. His own nursery in Canaguá lies at 1,580 metres. Women do 70 to 80% of the work on Mérida’s coffee farms, he says.

How much coffee does Mérida grow?

Measure	Figure	Source
Area	More than 27,000 ha	State government, via Diario de Los Andes, 2025
Coffee plants	15,173,800	Ministry of Agriculture state director, 2024
Production, 2026	6,200 t	Government
Exports	More than 200 t, to Belarus, Serbia, Russia and Syria	State governor, 2025
National rank	Once first, now third	Mérida coffee cluster, 2022
Coffee area, older count	About 6,396.70 ha; more than 3,770 growers in 11 associations	Plan Nacional Café 2011, via SAPI Bulletin 625
Coffee municipalities	19 of Mérida’s 23, on 4,970 km²	SAPI Bulletin 625

The figures do not fit neatly: the 2011 count in the geographical indication file is less than a quarter of the state’s 27,000 hectares; 15 million plants on 27,000 hectares would be only about 560 plants a hectare, by our calculation; and the government’s 2026 figures put Mérida fifth among the states it listed, not third. Coffee and potatoes together make up 80% of Mérida’s farm output, the agriculture ministry’s state director said in 2024. Some growers are certifying a local variety, Criollo Mérida, which one grower says yields 55 to 65 quintales a hectare.

A short history

• End of the 18th century: coffee is grown in Táchira, Mérida and Trujillo, though it spreads slowly.
• From about 1800: cultivation spreads around the city of Mérida, Ejido, La Punta, Lagunillas and Tovar.
• 1830–1875: coffee is first grown commercially in Mérida.
• 2018: the Mérida coffee cluster is relaunched with European Union support.
• 2025: a Mérida Geisha wins the national contest with a record 91.54.

Source for the history: Universidad de Los Andes (2025), citing Ardao (1984) and Graterol (1983).

Mérida and other Venezuelan origins

• Coffee in Venezuela: the whole country, its disputed figures and its history.
• Trujillo (Boconó): the neighbouring Andean state, with Venezuela’s first coffee geographical indication.
• Lara: Venezuela’s biggest coffee state.