Sounds insane, but it’s true. Venezuela has the world’s finest coffee, but when I looked around in the shops of Caracas for some bagfuls to take home for Christmas presents, there were none to be found. (I had trouble finding the Hugo Chavez Action Figure for Christmas, too. Not even the buhoneros had it in stock.)

These shortages, like the various meat shortages seen around Caracas in past months, are glints of the shortages to come as the communist revolution of Hugo Chavez consolidates. They are a sign of something, the first shooting pains, and they don’t just occur in a vacuum. The conditions that create these little shortages are price controls, capital controls, exchange controls, an unfavorable business and investment environment (foreign investment is 75% lower in absolute terms than in the pre-Chavez days) and the disincentives inherent in collective farming. It’s just small stuff now, but there is no reason to think the trend isn’t likely to continue.

Caracas looks like a normal place. With these shortages, it’s not.

I’d given up on the coffee, but on my way out of Maiquetia, I spotted a coffee shop that sure enough, sold Starbucks-size bags of the precious brew ahead of the waiting flights, and snapped up six bags, praying that the glorious aroma of them would not arouse the U.S. Customs man I’d lied my way past about consumables on my declarations sheet. I was ready to tell him I’d bought it all at the Duty-Free along with my Santa Teresa rum, or if that didn’t work, whine about my whole form being written in Spanish, and claim I didn’t speak any so how was I to know? No, I got away with it and am sipping it as I write this, the very bag on my desk. Whew!

Katy at Caracas Chronicles has an amusing piece about the government’s likely response to the great coffee shortage showing up in Caracas – the tongue in cheek account can be found right here.