This farm, El Retiro, was purchased in 1832 by Francisco Alburez; it had previously been the property of a religious order in Guatemala. Francisco and his children planted corn and beans on the land; it was his grandson Carlos who planted the first coffee trees on the farm back in 1912. The generations that followed had many challenges to face, from the 1976 earthquake to the Civil War in the 1980s, but they persevered. Today, Carlos’ descendants still manage the coffee farm