Coffee 

XVIII century 
 is considered native of Abyssinian, from where  extended to Egypt, Persia and Turkey. The Arabs spread it for the mediterranean costs of the África north. Their consumption transcended to Europe taken by the monks to its monasteries, but from half-filled of the XVII century it passed the walls of the convents and they began to take it with profusion the legos. Already in 1693, London counted with more than a hundred of public coffees; the first ones "Coffee" of Paris they opened their doors toward the year of 1670, and when entering the XVIII century the use of this drink it was in such a common way in France that this decided to foment the cultivation of the coffee in their own insular domains of the Caribbean, to avoid the consumption of the grain coming from other countries. The introduction of this cultivation in America dates of 1714, in the Dutch Guayana. The plantations in Martinique began in 1723, of where the seed passed Jamaica, Guadalupe and Cayena. Already in 1732 Jamaica it exported important quantities of this fruit. Of the French Martinique it transcended to the Spanish insular domains in the Caribbean: Sacred Domingo, Puerto Rico and only later to Cuba. In 1730 it was introduced in the region of the Orinoco by the religious missions settled down there, mentioning him José Gumilla, in 1741, among the productions picked up in the vicinities of the great river: "The coffee, fruit so appreciable, myself made the test, I sowed him and it grew so that it was seen be very on purpose that earth to give plentiful crops of this fruit". The siembras prospered for that area and other neighbors belonging to the old Spanish governments that integrated the Republic of Venezuela in the XIX century. They extended to the government of Caracas toward the year of 1740, according to the "Relationship" of Miguel of Santisteban who saw cultivations of coffee in chorus in that date, and in 1755, it consists in the books of the Real Treasury the export for The Guaira of 156 pounds of coffee going to Cádiz, the first one that we have news, in ship of the Compañía Guipuzcoana. This small load belonged "to merchants of the city" and it serves as evidence that there were already cultivations of certain consideration. This time the coffee was evaluated at 4 real (half weight) the pound, that is to say to reason of 50 pesos the quintal, an extraordinarily high estimate, superior more than 3 times to the price for then of the cocoa. Toward 1764 the sementeras was important, because Joseph Luis Cisneros mentions the coffee among the products that were picked up in the government of Venezuela, contributing in its brief text the news that "In Nirgua it occurs very good and they estimate it a lot the foreigners...", sentence with which insinuates that already in that date it was extracted toward other domains. Another export for The Guaira was registered in 1755 according to seat in the books of the Real Treasury of that year, in ship also of the Compañía Guipuzcoana: 4 quintals for Spain and other 4 for Sacred Domingo, in total 800 pounds. It was for then notorious, and in ascent road, the consumption of the grain harvested in the regions of Aragua and Valencia and in the mountainous suburbs of Caracas, because the volume of the regular exports that you/they registered starting from 1785 toward Spain and their domains and the foreign colonies, added to the interior consumption, they are evidences of the development of the plantations. Also in Cumaná and Río Caribe had cultivations in 1776. For Maracaibo  registered in 1778, an export of 455 pounds and in 1784, the governor of that county requested providences for the development of the cultivation of the coffee in that jurisdiction, and that a lot of people are in charge of in shelling it. Spain tried to stimulate the coffee cultivations in its American domains, starting from half-filled of the XVIII century. In 1748 the coffee was introduced in Cuba, and to increase the plantations in all the islands of the Hispanic Caribbean in order to placing them under conditions of competing with the production of those of France, the Crown granted absolute frank for the exports of this fruit, for the Ordinance of Trade Free of 1765 that  understood Margarita islands and Trinidad. In 1768 it ordered the governor from Caracas the development of the sows of the coffee in the general extension of this government, excusing from all right to the harvesters for 5 year-old time. The indispensable metropolitan government considered to promote this cultivation, position "...que the whole coffee that is introduced in Spain is by means of the strange trade [...], seeming him of justice to prefer the crops characteristic to the other people's ones that extract the money of the Kingdom". Later on, in 1770, it extended the benefits of the ordinance from 1765 to all its continental domains and for the regulation of October of 1778, 12 the coffee was specifically excused, with other American products, of all contribution to its entrance in Spain. Although these real resolutions didn't reach in all their effects to the old government of Caracas in reason of the contract subscribed by the Crown with the Compañía Guipuzcoana, these limitations disappeared by means of the ordinance of January of 1780, 24 that granted to this government all the frank excused to the other American domains. This group of emanated measures of the Council of India had an immediate repercussion in the agricultural economy of the region, because many lands that didn't have application to be hillsides of marked inclination and of thick shade, they were on the other hand appropriate for this new cultivation, in such a way that in 1785 the regular exports of coffee began, nevertheless that a local consumption of some importance that is evidenced by some eventual introductions of the grain picked up in other neighboring, Spanish and even French areas that were added to the consumption of the own crops existed. Those exports of the county of Venezuela were directed to Spain, Islas Canarias and to the Spanish colonies and continental foreigners, to a rhythm of extraordinarily quick growth: 
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Spanish colonies 
Spain and Total foreigners 
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1785 1.200 lb. 1.683 lb. 2.883 lb. 
1786 1.990 lb. 3.148 lb. 5.138 lb. 
1787 1.525 lb. 4.892 lb. 6.417 lb. 
1788 1.067 lb. 5.749 lb. 6.816 lb. 
1789 23.371 lb. 1.684 lb. 25.055 lb. 
1790 65.443 lb. 65.443 lb. 
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In the 23.371 pounds exported in 1789 by The Guaira, they are included 11.600 pounds that you/they entered of Cumaná to be remitted Spain. There were not exports of coffee for Puerto Cabello neither Choir. As it is noticed by those figures, the production of coffee in the government of Venezuela almost grew in 1789 4 times on the immediately previous year, extending the siembras in a short time for the whole valley and mountains of Caracas. The price was then very attractive: 18 pesos the quintal (100 pounds), superior in a third to that of the cocoa (13,5 pesos the fanega of 110 pounds) and it was this a factor that stimulated the farmers, together to the growing demand imposed by the come fashion of the big European capitals. According to the compound Report in 1790 for the justice bigger than Chacao, Manuel of Blacksmiths, to the governor's instances, in the area understood among the river Anauco and the river Tócome, that is to say, in what is today from San Bernardino until the entrance of Petare, there were 19 important plantations with a total of 148.000 trees, more 345.000 in clever almácigos to be transplanted, that is to say, 493.000, what supposes a production of 300.000 pounds that year and 950.000 at 1.000.000 of pounds 2 years later, if everything ran with fortune. The planters mentioned in that Report are the following ones: the presbítero José Antonio García Mohedano, with 60.000 undergrowths, of them 45.000 already fruit-bearing; seguíale the also presbítero José Stolen Antonio, with 60.000 "in almácigos already achieved"; in third place, Miguel José Sanz with 50.000 to sow; Bartolomé Blandain appears there with 30.000 fruit-bearing and 10.000 in almácigos. They continue them, Domingo Velásquez, Juan Amaro, Antonio Origüela, Francisco Domínguez, the presbítero Pedro Palacios and Sojo, with 48.000 of those which 23.000 already fruit-bearing, Ana Muñoz, Antonio Sojo, Concepción Sojo, Esteban Sojo, Miguel Carmona, Juan Félix Palacios and Sojo, Pedro Gallegos, Nicolás Rabelo, José Julián Naranjo and their sisters and Nicolás Suárez. For real identification of November of 1791, 24 the exports of coffee, cotton, indigo and sugar, they were not only excused of the rights of export of these counties and of entrance in the Spanish, American and peninsular ports, but also of those of alcabala and tithes, and it also granted freedom to drive these fruits to any part of Europe from anyone of the governments understood under the Intendency, under equal conditions that they were granted to Cuba. This new incentive should accentuate the interest for this cultivation that should be then of a lot of extension, because the single export for The Guaira for Spain, Mallorca and Canarias and Spanish colonies and foreigners in America, ascended in 1791 to 141.241 pounds, should be added the exports of the other ports, more the interior consumption. In 1793 for The Guaira 139.099 pounds came out (included 2.000 of Cumaná); for Maracaibo, 2.241 and for Trinidad, 262.649 pounds, that is to say a total of 403.989 pounds. In summary, for the ports of the Intendency and general captaincy they left: 

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1791 154.950 Caracas, Trinidad, Maracaibo 
1792 145.060 the Guaira 
1793 403.989 Caracas and other governments 
1794 637.842""" 
1795 746.243""" 
1796 892.974""" 
1797 535.950 (the loss of Trinidad influenced in this drop) 
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When entering the XIX century the production of coffee it was in the middle of and quick ascent, in such a way that in 1805 they left for The Guaira 2.774.316 pounds, included the exports for Puerto Cabello, it calculates 5 times adult to that of 1797. Of every year of that first decade, the most significant was that of 1809, not only for the complexity of the square of the strange trade of this fruit that passed of 7.000.000 of pounds, but because it reached to be compared with that of the cocoa that later on was displaced to a second more and more distant place. 
As comparison, we can point out that the exported cocoa that same year to Spain, to the Spanish colonies of America and foreign colonies it reached to 74.301 fanegas. According to the testimony of Alejandro of Humboldt, at the beginning of the XIX century "...Las more beautiful coffee plantations...", they were "...en the Savanna of Ocumare and in The Corner, as well as in the mountainous region of The Mariches, San Antonio, Hatillo and the Budares...", and among the most important, it mentions that of The Avocados, near Valencia. This naturalistic sage affirms that the total export of the county of Caracas in the time of its biggest prosperity, before the revolutionary wars of 1810-1823 already took place from 50.000 to 60.000 quintals. And with regard to the production and abilities of the valley of Caracas, on the one that so many missed opinions have been emitted until the one of considering it I agree of this cultivation in Venezuela,  says "...que in general is [...] less productive of that than at the beginning it had been believed, when the first plantations were made near Chacao". The beautiful pages of Red Arístides, collections under the title of The first cup of coffee in the valley of Caracas, they have been as a legend, because the historical investigation has overflowed the strait space understood between the small rivers of the Anauco and the Tócome, and it has extended the origins from the coffee to the whole government and stiller, to the whole territory of the other entities that today integrates that of Venezuela; the father José Antonio García Mohedano has left of being considered as the precursor of this cultivation in all the vastness of the nation. Red Arístides didn't seek so much; you grieve  referred to the immediate lands to the city, because  not even mentioned to the line of The Mariches neither the district of Petare, and less still beyond those terms, because him same  tells us that the land where first it prospered to the coffee, it was beside the Orinoco, in date so old as it is the one from 1730 to 1732 and  goes back a years from 1783 to 1784 the introduction of the cultivation in the valley of Caracas. The celebration that he relates us should hardly refer to the first crop collection in those "stays of Chacao", calls "Blandín", "San Felipe" and "The Floresta", because in the same year of 1786, when they met in Bartolomé Blandain's house like the documents pray (and not "Blandín" to that the Basque last name has come), they were exported by The Guaira more than 5.000 pounds and almost 3.000 the year previous of 1785, product of groves planted many years behind. E.Ar.F. 
XIX-XX centuries 
From final of the XVIII century and principles of the XIX one, the production of coffee had continued growing, just as it can be deduced of the export figures. The cultivation went incorporating quickly to the country properties cacaoteras of the coastal region center-north, in which it didn't interfere with other cultivations in funds of valleys and lands could be used with more slopes without exposing them to the erosion. The location in the north of the country was also advantageous for the existence of communication roads and its proximity to the ports. The export averages yearly in the decade 1830-1840 it was of 6.320 t and between that last year and that of 1870, it dates approximate of beginning of the cultivation in you Walk them Venezuelans, such an average reached 16.500 annual t. Here the great expansion of the cultivation begins, in the first place to the biggest commercial readiness of capable, almost worthless lands until then, climate benign and bigger manpower readiness. The export average among 1870 and die of the XIX century, the 38.000 annual t surpasses. The 2 areas producers have a different agrarian structure: while in the mountain range of the Costa it was located in the country properties, which were not limited to cultivate cocoa, tobacco, or later cane of sugar, but rather they had lands for cultivations of "smaller fruits" as corn, caraota, roots, tubers, etc., and they also possessed facilities that today would call agroindustrial (fermentadores, local of benefit, geniuses papeloneros or "trapiches", drying patios, etc.), besides herdsmen for the shepherding of shot animals, cows milkmaids, smaller livestock and corrals of hens. With the product of such activities it was contributed to the feeding of the laborer and the surplus was marketed in the cities or neighboring towns. In summary, the country properties of the mountain range of the Costa were true latifundios, not only for their physical extension, but for the socioeconomic relationships between proprietors and workers. On the other hand, the coffee properties of the mountain range of you Walk them, of smaller size, practically monoproductoras, constituted and they are still it, family exploitations, of rural economy. The exports continued being increased in the first years of the century xx and they arrived to their culminating point in 1919, when 82.382 t was exported. from then on the caficultura has come experiencing numerous ups and downs in the production and in the prices, due to several factors: the 2 world wars, the appearance of the petroleum, the crisis of the decade of 1930 and the expansion of the cultivation in the Brazil. The volumes of production of the year 1919 have not repeated and the fluctuations of prices have been of such a magnitude that these passed of Bs. 2.166/t in 1928 to Bs. 550/t in 1939, the lowest value in the whole history. Numerous they have been the measures adopted by the national government to protect the caficultura, for their double condition of cultivation generator of foreign currencies and of protection against the erosion, but the most important consisted on the creation of the National Institute of the Coffee, substituted later by the National Fund of the Coffee, the National Coffee Campaign, as well as the installation of the "dollar fruit" and other similar subsidy mechanisms, as the minimum entrance guaranteed by export quality. The annual average of production for the years 1988-1993 was of 71.546 t and it was obtained mainly in federal, but concentrated 20 entities in the states Táchira (20%), Merida (13%), Trujillo (12%), Lara (9%), Portuguese (9%), Monagas (7%), Sucre (4%) and Barinas (3%). H.F.