Imbibe 75 Person to Watch: Henrique Maruyama Wogel

Curitiba, Brazil

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Brazil is one of the world’s premiere coffee-producing regions. But due to protectionist rules against importing green coffee, many Brazilian coffee professionals have limited exposure to coffees from other regions, which can limit their understanding. Henrique Maruyama Wogel was seven years into his coffee career in his native Curitiba, where he works as the head roaster at Manana Café, when he discovered what he’d been missing. The realization was prompted by a visit to Sacramento for the Terra Madre Americas gathering in September, which Wogel attended as a recipient of a Slow Food Negroni Week Fund educational scholarship.

“The Slow Food Coffee Coalition had a big space at the event where I spent a lot of time,” Wogel says. “I was able to bring back some Mexican coffee from an Indigenous producer who’s doing great stuff with agriculture, and I tried roasting an Ethiopian coffee on an electric roasting machine—that was my first time roasting non-Brazilian coffee.” Though only in his mid-20s, Wogel says he’s already decided to continue working with coffee as his career. “When I started working with coffee, it wasn’t supposed to be for the rest of my life—I used to study geography—but I started getting in contact with people who cared about the world, and what we eat, and how we can make it better, so I decided to go with coffee and gastronomy.”

In addition to working at Manana, Wogel has created his own coffee brand, Haru Torras, and he’s also working as a bartender, traveling to Cuba in 2024 as Brazil’s representative for the Havana Club cocktail competition. Wogel says the scholarship opportunity opened his eyes to the kinds of things Brazil can contribute to the coffee world, and the role he can play in its future. “I don’t plan on leaving the beverage industry. I’d like to focus on my roasting brand, maybe open a coffee shop, and do everything I can in aligning the Slow Food ideas of good, quality food for everyone, for as many people as I can.”

Click here to read more about some of 2026’s other Imbibe 75 People and Places to Watch.