What Coffee Means to Tuxpal
Almost 93 years have passed since our ancestor, Petrona Palacios de Diaz put down a payment on a beautiful land in the Santa Ana volcano called “El Retiro”. She bought this land with the purpose of starting a family legacy in coffee, and covered the land with bourbon coffee trees to start off her adventure.
Some years later, this land was inherited by her daughter, Petrona Diaz de Pacas, who kept working the land. The family went up to the farm frequently as the coffee forest grew all around. When it was time, divided the farm in three parts, which she gave to her three sons. Federico Pacas Diaz, the eldest, named his new plot after the former owners… Santa Petrona.
The hard work that was put into the farm was not forgotten, and Federico worked the land as his mother and grandmother had before him. He went up with his own family, took it upon himself to improve yields, plant trees for shade, improve the microclimate, and start producing coffee that represented this family legacy. This included the acquisition of more farms, expanding his own territory, and exploring other lands, climates and altitudes.
In 1999, Federico built Beneficio Tuxpal, a wet mill that was and is still used to process coffees with all the traditional and new methods, that really amount to producing high quality coffees. Innovation has always been an important part of this family, in the search for improving the way it produces and processes coffee.
In 2012, his own son, Federico Pacas Lopez took over operations and focused on producing specialty coffee for export. This was a challenge, as 2012 was a year full of leaf rust and when the price crisis in coffee had already started. However, hope was not lost and the farm stands to this day as a symbol of our resilience.
So what does coffee mean to us? It is the way in which we have experienced and expressed values of family, excellence, resilience, innovation and loyalty… values that help us keep our feet on the fertile ground, and our eyes fixed on the excellence that comes out of it.
