[2][3] Rui Nabeiro was born in Campo Maior, District of Portalegre, Portugal, in 1931.

[4] He studied until the fourth grade, the primary school education in Portugal.

[5] Starting at 12, he helped his mother in a small grocery store and his father and uncles in a family-owned coffee roasting workshop, at a time when the effects of the civil war in Spain (1936-1939) were still felt and the Portugal-Spain border was a place of smuggling.

[2] He assumed the leadership of his family-owned coffee roasting business at 19, and Delta Cafés was founded by him in 1961, around his 30th anniversary.

[7] In 2022, Rui Nabeiro was awarded a doctorate honoris causa by the University of Coimbra under the proposal of its School of Economics (FEUC).