Orlando and family live in a very traditional wood built farm house, which is over one hundred years old. The main living area is on stilts about one storey above the ground. Most of the floor is open to the elements, including the living and dining areas and the stove. Power comes from a generator, which Orlando starts up at night to power lights and the TV.

Below the main floor, right under the living area, are two large pull out trays running on rails, on which maize is dried and cacao fermented and dried.

This is certainly not city living, but as cacao farmers go, the Lozadas are prospering. Next door to the old farmhouse, an impressive new, larger, wooden building is well on the way to completion. Orlando has already used this space for hosting conferences for visiting development agencies – I’m guessing interested in the impressive cacao yields Orlando is achieving. The unfinished attic level of the new building was being used for drying cacao during our visit. When the new house is finished enough for the Lozadas to move into, the old house will be preserved and used for visitors and conferences – a very beautiful, authentic setting.

Once we were settled, Orlando took us down the hill into the plantation area, which sits in a hollow below the house, with a river behind. This apparently creates a very good micro climate for growing cacao, which was born out by the large number of pods present on many trees, even though the next harvest season is still a month or so away.

There’s a real mix of varieties here. Orlando has introduced and planted many varieties normally found in the Panama mix and from outside. These are all carefully labelled and Orlando keeps track of which variety is planted where, though as they are all in close proximity there’s inevitably a high amount of cross-pollenisation between trees.

We saw whole range of cacao, from gnarly criollo shaped green pods, through to red/purple trinitarios, green/red mixed types and some yellow forasteros. Most often, we saw bright orange pods hanging like lanterns in a John Singer Sargent painting.

The flavour profile of these beans is going to be very mixed, with a compromise fermentation time required. The only hope is to develop a distinct ‘terrior’ type flavour – similar to what happens at Chuao – rather than based on a dominant or related range of varieties. The productivity is impressive though, as is Orlando’s desire to develop and improve, so I think we could see some great results from this farm in the future.

A few happy hours passed among the cacao trees, then we repaired to the farmhouse for dinner before lights out.

The post Latin American tour August 2008 – Day 18 – Panama, Orlando Lozada’s farm appeared first on Seventy%.

Our connection with Panama stared a couple of years ago when we were contacted by two different ex-pats living in Panama and trying to get chocolate projects started in the country. One of these was Margaret Ann, who with her husband Henri Escudero, runs the Jungle Lodge at La Loma – an alternative holiday destination right in the jungle in the Bocas del Toro region, with a working butterfly farm and a small quantity of cacao trees.

If you’ve been to some of our tastings or read our newsletter in the last few years, you’ll know that Margaret and Henri have been supplying Bill McCarrick at Sir Hans Sloane with small amounts of cacao liquor – roughly ground roasted cacao beans. Bill has been turning this into some great finished chocolate using his ‘ChocoEasy’ conching machine.

Given that the liquor has mostly been made by pan roasting over an open fire or in a domestic oven, then hand grinding, the results have been pretty good. I think Bill even bettered his gold award-winning rose petal bar when he made it with the Panama chocolate he’d conched, for the Academy Awards ceremony in April.

Panama has a tiny cacao production in comparison to other countries in the region – 2,000 tonnes per year compared to Ecuador’s 115,000 or Venezuela’s 45,000 or so. There are however, cacao farms laying dormant because local prices are so low, so we’ve been talking for some time about how we could help farmers and the industry in Panama and perhaps help to start a more organised production of quality cacao liquor.

Perhaps in time it might even be possible to produce finished chocolate in Panama, or at least some more rustic products based on rough-ground liquor. This was our chance to investigate the local industry and talk to some of the farmers and businesses we’d been hearing about for the last few years.

All that is to come though. After arriving in Bocas town, we checked into to our lagoon-side hotel and repaired to the waterside bar and restaurant a few doors up at Hotel Angel for margaritas. There we reconnected with Kate Malone and Tom Bouwens – our travelling companions from back in Guatemala. Kate and Tom are spending longer in Panama to work on various projects, including liquor making possibilities.

The post Latin American tour August 2008 – Day 17 – Panama appeared first on Seventy%.

My impression was not helped by even further transport problems trying to leave the – boarding our flight out was chaotic. We were moved from one gate to another then back to our original gate for no apparent reason. We were beginning to wonder if we’d ever actually get away. Taking off, over an hour late, was certainly a relief.

Venezuela is a beautiful country that feels like it’s going through a period of turmoil and a great deal of change and – if it was ever not in turmoil, that is. Everyone you speak to has an opinion on the current political situation, often in support of Chavez, but often also with reservations.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a very unequal, unfair society, with what on the surface appears to be an obsession with material gain and appearance. (I didn’t see anyone badly dressed, whatever their income – except perhaps Andrés, who was rather proud of the fact that his clothes were from Primark in the UK rather than Nike!) Something needs to change in Venezuela, but fast change can be counter-productive and comes with its own dangers, as does extending the term and power of those in charge. Even if you think that’s right for the present incumbent, you never know who you’re going to get next.

For cacao growing, I think I’d expected Venezuela to be some kind of model of quality and production standards, given the reputation the country has and the price its beans fetch. Instead I find out that around 30% of Venezuelan beans are not even fermented, and that cacao is a difficult industry to be involved in. In fact Venezuela faces the same problems prevalent in most cacao producing countries – problems with quality control and post-harvest processing, farmers leaving their farms because it’s not worth growing cacao, traders buying and selling beans regardless of quality, varieties mixed up and compromised by planting of poor varieties designed for industrial production rather than taste.

In some ways things are worse for Venezuela, because the demand is so high for Venezuelan beans that they can be sold whatever the condition. Surprisingly, the Dominican Republic has a more organised and advanced industry.

So it’s important that we support the efforts of cooperatives like Chuao and recovery projects like Hacienda Monterosa and Hacienda San José. As ever, the message is to ‘look beyond the label’, not just buy into the marketing message that Venezuelan cacao is always good, just because it’s Venezuelan.

By the afternoon, we were in Panama City for the last leg of the journey, and finding ourselves in a totally different atmosphere. Wandering around the streets without any problem or hassle, Steve and I relaxed with Mojito’s and some great ‘Pacific rim’ fusion food. What a contrast.
 

The post Latin American tour August 2008 – Day 16 – Venezuela reflections appeared first on Seventy%.

Venezuelan ATMs just don’t play with foreign credit or debit cards – they keep asking for your Venezuelan ID number and talk to you in Spanish, even if you chose the English option. Also they are programmed to work at high speed – apparently a security precaution, but totally baffling to a stranger like me. More like playing a one-armed bandit. So the only way to get cash was to queue inside and get money over the counter through an old fashioned swipe machine and showing your passport.

Outside of Caracas this was an even greater problem, and it required José Vicente Franceschi to call ahead to the bank, a meeting with the bank manager and then still joining the huge queues to got hold of some money. All the time the clock was ticking and we still had an hour and a half’s drive to the airport.

We made it, only to discover that maintenance problems had caused delays on the 45 minute flight to Caracas. Then the weather turned, and in all we were delayed four and a half hours, with Steve left waiting for us in Caracas. We arrived early evening, having missed most of our appointments for the day, but did manage to catch up with Kai and Mrs Rosenberg and their daughter Jessica again.

The post Latin American tour August 2008 – Day 15 – Venezuela frustrations appeared first on Seventy%.

Our flight to Cumana was in the afternoon though, so in the usual spirit of this trip of “exactly how many chocolate related visits can we squeeze in on one day”, we got up early and took a three hour taxi ride to an artisanal chocolate maker on a plantation, Mis Poemas, in San José de Barlovento.

We were met by owner Amanda de Garcia, and shown into the factory shop, a very pleasant little enterprise full of Mis Poemas’s range of bars and pralines. Further back in the room the packers were busy wrapping up Amanda’s products, destined for local trade and Venezuelan supermarkets.

We were given a guided tour by Simon Perez, who also builds and maintains the factory’s machines. Mis Poemas was launched as part of a government initiative to encourage artisanal chocolate production, along with nine other companies. Simon built the machines for all these operations, though only five now remain, including Mis Poemas.

The production at Mis Poemas was certainly very inventive, with refiners built from spare car parts, and the branding and presentation was well thought out. The texture of the chocolate still needs a lot of work though, and the flavour profile could be more balanced. Some very sour, off butter notes suggest that the chocolate is unlikely to reach beyond the local market at the moment.

Our taxi driver came with us on the visit – I hope he was beginning to like fine chocolate – then drove us to the main airport in Caracas, we were meant to meet my fellow Seventypercent founder, Steve Chung, and fly on to Cumana. Steve got delayed in Frankfurt though, due to baggage problems and couldn’t make the connection – and this was just the beginning of our travel frustrations today.

We couldn’t get Steve on the next flight to Cumana, and after checking in ourselves, Andrés and I were bemused by the lack of information and the general disorganisation in the airport. Our flight wasn’t even listed on the departure boards. Eventual we found the pilot and hostess, waiting with the public at the gate. They seemed as confused as the rest of us, but at least we could stick with them until it was time to board, about an hour late.

Cumana was a lot more relaxed, but we still had to take a taxi on to Carupano – about an hour and a half’s drive. (A direct flight to Carupano is possible, but logistics meant we couldn’t use this.)

We’d had trouble getting a hotel in Carupano, so the Francesci family had booked us into a posanda – a bed and breakfast lodging. I’d no idea what kind of place we’d be in. By the time we got there, it was dark, about 10pm and we were very tired from a long day.

Sometimes travelling brings unexpected moments of joy. The owner showed us in through the main gate, up the stairs, and to a patio overlooking the Caribbean sea, bedecked with hammocks.

About one minute after we arrived there was a power cut. We had no choice but to sit in the hammocks in the moonlight, listening to the sound of the sea breaking on the nearby beach and eating the Pizza kindly brought by our hosts, the Franceschi family, ownders of the Hacienda San José plantation. A long day ends with a small piece of heaven.

The post Latin American tour August 2008 – Day 13 – Paria Peninsula, Venezuela appeared first on Seventy%.

Setting off early, we caught a boat carrying a cargo of water and snack food to Chuao – there’s no road, everything has to arrive and leave by boat. We found out later that rumours of a new road to bring in tourists were just that, rumours, and the locals in Chuao would rather keep it that way.

The trip was a little bumpy, but exhilarating. Sooner than we expected, we were pulling up on the beach and then hiking our way the few kilometres up the main road in Chuao to the town and its famous church. We were passed by quite a few trucks and even a bus, all brought in by boat. Although Chuao is cut off by road, there are many boat trips each day carrying passengers, supplies and larger cargo.

Once you’re on the road to Chuao, you’re already among the cacao trees and into the farmed cacao area. Some areas were denser than others, and some had just been cleared. Cacao was everywhere though, a range of varieties and types, as expected. From obvious red/purple trinitarios, to lighter red criollos – mostly young fruit to greener red mixed pods, and a few unusual light brown variations.

One tree had a single stunning orange pod, hanging like a lantern. Later in the village we saw a large, more rounded yellow pod that looked identical to African forasteros. Quite a mix then. Some cleared areas were growing plantain, but we later learned that most of the town’s food was shipped in by boat. We saw one or two cases of black pod, but it looked like the clearing work going on would improve ventilation and prevent this spreading.

Finally we reached the town, a longer walk than I expected. It was kind of strange seeing the famous church front and the drying patio for the first time. Not an anticlimax as such, but have spent time already in Choroni, the style wasn’t so totally unexpected, but nonetheless distinctive. The church was a little more run down than the famous front view landscapes suggest, but impressive all the same.

There was no cacao drying on the church patio when we arrived – we were told later that only the first two day’s drying took place, here, and then only if the sun was really good. This surprised us, as it was already a very hot day, but apparently the cement needs to really heat up before drying begins – a few day’s good sun is required.

We still weren’t sure whether we’d do nothing more than walk round the square and then have to head back down the long track to the port. We soon found what was obviously the main cacao production building and offices, but the whole building was shut and locked up. Andrés asked a local and we were directed to ask for Nora, the cooperative administrator, in the next building along. There we found a young, ebullient, woman having her hair platted by what I guess were members of her extended family.

Andrés explained who we were and why we were so interested in Chuao, and Nora agreed to talk to us. We soon bonded through a mutual love of cacao, chocolate, and Amedei’s Chuao.

Back in the consumer countries, there’s been lots of speculation that beans from Chuao – but not the Chuao cooperative – have been available for sale to chocolate makers, or  there is some doubt as to where the Chuao region ends and therefore dispute over what can and can’t be called Chuao. Nora put us straight on this, as did the geography of the valley.

There’s no road in or out of Chuao, the valley is long and thin, and I just don’t see how any significant quantity of beans could pass through the port without the cooperative’s knowledge. And as far as we could see, there are no other drying or fermentation facilities available in the town, which consists of only a handful of streets. Maybe someone could hike a bag or two over the mountains, but that’s it. So where is all this other Chuao coming from? That’s a question we still don’t have an answer for, but I hope we have time to find out more before leaving Venezuela.

Nora also told us that the rumours of a road being built to give a direct connection to Chuao were unfounded, and in any case a road wouldn’t be welcome. I guess this would open the town up too much, and affect the cooperative’s ability to offer an exclusive supply.

Talking of which, it’s widely known that Amedei’s exclusive contract with the cooperative is currently up for renewal, so Andrés asked the obvious question, what will the cooperative do next? Nora wasn’t giving anything away, but it seems likely that while the arrangement with Amedei will of course continue, other companies could be in the picture in the near future.

Some members of the cooperative have been taking lessons in chocolate making, and we were given a handful of bonbons each to try. So far I’ve not had a chance to try these out of the heat, but a milk chocolate I picked at random was pretty good.

After chatting with Nora, we were shown the fermentation and storage rooms. About 200kg can be fermented at one time, but this small size would not be a problem for continuous fermentation right next to the plantation.

Cacao is only dried on the church patio if it’s hot enough, at other times the beans are gathered up and stored in neat piles in the storage room. After two full days on the patio, the cacao is moved to other drying areas within the town.

Soon we had to say final goodbyes to Nora and Chuao, as our boat back to Puerto Colombia was due at noon. Visiting Chuao had been a wonderful, warm, informative experience. We had been so fortunate to find such a great welcome even with no advanced warning, but I’ve found that’s often the way with chocolate -sometimes the best plans are the unmade ones.

After taking a passenger boat back to Puerto Colombia, our taxi picked us up and took us back over the winding mountain road to Caracas.

In the evening we visited the home of Kai Rosenberg, owner of the Monterosa plantation we’d visited the previous day. We sat in the garden drinking whisky with coconut water, discussing the problems of producing cacao in Venezuela, the state of the fine chocolate industry and the hope for more and better fine chocolate in the future.

Later, back at the flat, I was able to indulge in that special itinerant traveller’s treat, clean laundry.

The post Latin American tour August 2008 – Day 12 – Chuao, Venezuela appeared first on Seventy%.

After about an hour we dropped down again into Choroni, and the driver took us almost to the gate of the Hacienda Monterosa plantation, owned by Kai Rosenburg, who currently works very closely with Valrhona, supplying beans for some of their best chocolates.

We had to walk the last few hundred metres, over a footbridge and past the first electricity plant in Venezuela – a hydro-electric plant converted into a museum and now disused and completely abandoned.

Monterosa is made up of several plantations joined into a single estate. We crossed the river and entered through the entrance to La Sabaneta, one of the original smaller plantations that make up the estate.

We walked up to the hacienda, with breakfast waiting to greet us. We ate overlooking the patio, where cacao was drying, laid out in rough circles with the cacao in parallel rows, except for one end, where two or three perpendicular rows formed a kind of base to this pattern. I’ve no idea why the beans are laid out this way; I guess it’s just tradition.

After we finished a very fine, traditional breakfast, the patron of the estate, Mateo – who in five years has worked his way up from labourer to farm manager, asked us if we wanted the ‘long’ or ‘short’ tour, to which of course we replied ‘long’. Very long as it turned out, but very rewarding.

Monterosa is by far the most beautiful plantation I have visited, with a forest garden feel, and has actually been landscaped, we later learned. There’s a sense of intense growth and greenness, while at the same time a feeling of openness and light.

Much of the land was being replanted with either seedlings or grafts of a tree with green pods with white beans and a high proportion of criollo. This is part of a project to recover the original criollo crosses of the region, as introduced at some point by the Spanish in the countries early history.

Mateo cut us a pod from a tree and gently hacked it open with his machete. We tried the pulp around the beans, one bean at a time. Biting a bean revealed a pure white colour inside.

The flavour was amazing. High, sweet acid with full citric fruit, fading after about 20 seconds. After spitting out the bean, the clean citrus continued for a very, very long time.

The flavour reminded me of the fruitiness of Manjari on a good day. This was by far the best pulp I’d ever tried.

Not long after we found a trinitario pod with a red/purple skin. Although the plantation is trying to convert to growing purely the recovered Venezuelan high-criollo type with the white beans, the actual base trees that the white-beaned shoots are grafted onto are trinitarios. Despite the best efforts of Mateo and his workers, the base trees sometimes flower and this leads to crosses with the criollo and hence the purple pods, which have purple seeds inside.

We tried the pulp of this trinitario cross, and the flavour profile was considerably different. This time the acid lacked sweetness and soon disappeared. Towards the end there was a distinct milk, lactose note, then after spitting out the bean the length was negligible. I’ve tasted this milk note in nearly all the pulp I’ve tried before, and I feel that it’s related to the milk and coffee notes that crop up in nearly all chocolate made with forestero beans and that are detectable in many trinitarios as well.

For all you academics out there, I’d really like to see a study that relates the flavour of fresh pulp to the flavours found in fermented, dried beans, roasted beans, and finished chocolate. I’d suggest this needs to use human tasters, not just chemical analyses, because while subjective, too much of the current research in cacao ignores how it actually tastes.

So today I really learnt something – always try eating the pulp of the cacao pods if you visit a cacao farm, the experience can be very revealing.

The ‘Venezuelan criollo’ also had thicker, greener and broader leaves than I’m used to seeing, so much so that at first I mistook some of the trees for something other than cacao, especially the younger ones. I’m not sure though if this is all down to the species, or partly the result of the lush, green environment of Monterosa.

There’s a lot of experimentation going on as well, with some areas growing grafted white criollo and others growing trees from seed, to make a comparison of yield and cross pollination with the graft base tree – the grafted trees tend to give a better yield, but you have the risk of pollination from the base, despite attempts to coat the base in copper paint to prevent flowering.

We saw constant clearing work going on in the farms, and all the land was very well tended, while maintaining a wild garden feel.

In between extensive walks in the plantation, Mateo showed us the farm’s small fermentation room. This was a simple, single row three box arrangement, where batches of white beans spend two days in first the top box, then another two in the second level box – four days in total – while purple beans have an extra day in the bottom box, five in total, The beans are then dried in the central courtyard of the farm.

After lemonade to revive us, we set off again and explored some nursery areas of the plantation, where seedlings for both cacao and shade trees were grown.

Monterosa is a very beautiful estate, and a lot of thought has gone into both the layout and care of the land, and experimentation aimed a growing better cacao. Well worth a visit and the farmhouse, La Sabaneta, has a very beautiful suite of rooms overlooking the drying patio available to rent, though don’t expect cacao heaven to come cheap.

Leaving the farm, we managed to hitch a lift down to Puerto Colombia, part of the built up area of Choroni, where we stayed overnight and contemplated what cacao delights the next day would bring.

The post Latin American tour August 2008 – Day 11 – Choroni, Venezuela appeared first on Seventy%.

I was met by Venezuelan pastry chef and chocolatier, Andrés Zakhour. Andrés had until recently worked in the UK for five years, in Michelin star restaurants as well as spending time working with Bill McCarrick at the Sir Hans Sloane Chocolate company, which is how we met.

Andrés has plans to start a quality bean to bar chocolate company in Venezuela, which could be a great project, and it would be a real boost to have a fine chocolate made in a cacao producing country that even gets close to the quality of the best European or US makers.

After the airport, we drove straight to the city to check out a couple of Caracas’s chocolate shops. The first – called simply Kakao – used very modern, colourful design, with plenty of photos of pods around the place. We bought a couple of bars and tried a few ganaches. These were not bad, if a little grainy and sweet. The chocolate would have been El Rey, which is probably the only choice available to chocolatiers in Venezuela at the moment, apart from a few artisans.

Finally we repaired to Andrés’s family home. It was great not to spend the night in a hotel for a change and to enjoy some home comforts. Another bonus was the prospect of a full night’s sleep. We had an early start the next day, and it would be great to be well rested for a change. Tomorrow we head for Choroni, home to many famous names in the chocolate pantheon.

The post Latin American tour August 2008 – Day 10 – Caracas, Venezuela appeared first on Seventy%.

After some more shopping and hard bargaining in the market, we caught a bus back to Guatemala City, via Antigua were we said goodbye to Kate and Tom.  I’ll be catching up with them in a week or so though, in our final country on the tour, Panama.

After what seemed like a bus tour of the entire city, we were the final drop-off and arrived at our hotel after 9pm. Still, we were able to catch up with Juan Francisco Mollinedo for a quick chat and goodbye from Guatelama. I also managed to unload a significant part of my luggage on Juan Francisco – various samples, liquor, pods and shopping I’d accumulated along the way, which Juan will ship to me along with the precious metate. This was quite a relief in view of the growing weight of my bags.

Next day I have a very early flight to Caracas, and there wasn’t going to be much chance for sleep tonight. I’m beginning to get rather tired and I’ve forgotten exactly what eight hours of sleep is like.

The post Latin American tour August 2008 – Day 9 – Panajachel, Guatemala appeared first on Seventy%.

The day started pretty well – Edgar pulled up in the town after we set off, disappeared for a few minutes and soon appeared with a boxed up metata, a fantastic birthday present. Now I just have to get this shipped home.

After that, back on the road to Soconusco. Before anyone rushes to correct me, we’re talking the Socunusco belt here, the cacao growing region, which extends across the Guatemalan border into Mexico, rather than the official Mexican district.

Once upon a time, the finest cacao in the world was grown here, original pure criollos with thousands of years of human selection and cultivation for quality, taste and stimulant effect. Sadly now, like criollo itself, the region’s quality cacao is largely gone, but if ANAKAKAW have anything to do with it, hopefully not for good.

We set off with Edgar Chávez, and met up again with Juan Francisco Mollinedo, Roberto Deleón and Astrid Ortiz of ANAKAKAW on the road. Our plan was to visit ANAKAKAW’s experimental farm in San Marcos, however this was thwarted by a strike against the new government, who it seemed were failing to live up to promises made to indigenous groups during the election. The country’s borders were closed, and so was the road to San Marcos.

We had a backup plan though, Emily Stone had given us a contact. A farmer nearby in Samayac, Ernesto Porras, running a mixed coffee farm with some cacao and small artisanal production of chocolate.

First though we stopped for lunch, the delights of a Soconusco shopping mall food court proving yet again that malls are more or less the same the world over. We did get to try local a delicacy though, frozen fruit dipped in chocolate. I went for mango.

We’d originally planned a short visit with Ernesto, but our cancelled plans in San Marcos meant we had a much more relaxed visit, though a couple of angry bulls kept us from seeing all the sights.

When we arrived, Ernesto was struggling with a black pod infestation, and so was cutting back a lot of trees to try to increase ventilation. Part of the day’s harvest had just arrived, and the majority of it was spoiled by the disease.

Every cacao farm I’ve seen so far has been different, and in our time with Ernesto we learnt more about grafting of cacao, pruning and clearing shade to reduce humidity around the tress. The farm grows a mixture of coffee and rubber, while cacao is the smallest crop but growing in size. Maize is also grown by the farm workers, a hang over from when coffee prices were low and the farm was struggling to support all of its workers.

Coffee is a good earner, due to efficiency measures Ernesto introduced to remain competitive when prices were low. The farm is not that high though, so the coffee doesn’t attract the kind of premium that high altitude coffee would. This might make fine cacao an attractive alternative in the future, though at the moment Ernesto farms cacao more for maintaining tradition and out of interest, rather than profit.

Ernesto’s artisanal chocolate was produced in the farm kitchen, which from our brief sampling was pretty good. Unfortunately we left our bars in the house at the beginning of our tour and didn’t manage to get back there. Ernesto, if you’re reading this, it would still be great to try your chocolate properly some time!

After leaving Ernesto and parting company with Juan, Astrid and Roberto, Edgar drove us back into the highlands and onto Panajachel, a town on the shores of lake Atitlán where we’d be having a brief rest and a little tourist time.

The several changes in altitude we’d made that day were beginning to have an adverse effect, headaches adding to tiredness, but after check in we went out for a little shopping in the streets, which were a little touristy, but laden with interesting indigenous clothes and crafts. After that, we finished the day with a birthday meal in a German / Guatemalan restaurant. Margaritas were in order, and there was hearty singing from American tourists and much embarrassment from me when ‘Happy Birthday’ started up and unplanned chocolate cake appeared. I think I’ll try to spend all my birthdays like this from now on.

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