When Life Gives You Overripe Cacao Fruit

At an organic market in Costa Rica, my wife Becca and I came across cacao fruit. I've been wanting to try one for a long time. We bought it and brought it home for dessert.

When I opened it up, something wasn't right. There wasn't much pulp. I did some investigating and it turns out that it was overripe. I obviously didn't know what I was doing when I picked it.

My first thought was to take it back. That was a fear-based response. Fear alerted me that this wasn't what I expected. But then love stepped in and asked, what can I do with it?

It turns out that in the chocolate-making process, the fruit is used to ferment the beans. My overripe cacao had already started fermenting on its own. The beans had begun to darken, which is the first step of making chocolate. So, I improvised. No oven in our Costa Rica kitchen, but a pan, a strainer, and thirty minutes later I had something 75% of the way to real cacao nibs.

Becca crushed them up and put them in breakfast cookies she was making for our trip home. They were awesome!

As I was writing this story, my Daily Stoic email arrived. It was about Amor Fati, a mindset for embracing whatever happens. Not just being okay with it but loving it and being better for it. That spark of creativity, the cacao nibs, the new curiosity, none of it would have happened if I'd taken the fruit back to the store.

Read the full piece on Substack.

Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org.