What's a cocoa bean without a story?

Just a cocoa bean

Mr. Acheampong’s cocoa bean. It’s dry.

Anytime I help Mr. Acheampong dry his cocoa beans, I develop a connection with the little brown things.

Such that for me, they aren’t just cocoa beans. They’re our cocoa beans.

The beans we spent hours stirring and cleaning as they dried. The beans that made us super sensitive to weather changes for days. And the cocoa beans that stayed on our minds even when we were in town grocery shopping.

I feel good watching some of them, just sitting there in my palm. Quiet things ready to be shipped away.

But then I begin to feel sad, and a bit annoyed.

That, by the time these cocoa beans - OUR cocoa beans - sail across the big ocean into the new world, they’ll be just cocoa beans. And no one will know the beautiful tough moments that produced them.

Thus, my thesis, as a cocoa storyteller is this:

Without a story, the cocoa bean is incomplete.

I wish all cocoa beans arrived on the other side with their stories still intact.

❤️

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👋 Hey it’s Benjamin,
Thanks for reading this. If this is your first time reading my letter, awesome! Please explore the archive for previous thoughts. And subscribe for more thoughts on Africa’s cocoa culture.