I just spoke with my grower Vicente in Tabasco Mexico and my poor beans might be drenched in rain before they can make it over here.  As he says, “you can’t fight Mother Nature”.  Now I’m not sure if I can get the beans by Thanksgiving.  He says that since the rains are coming, it will take him some time to dry the beans by sun.  Due to my limited lack of graphic design skills, I didn’t know how to draw an arrow, but I can make a yellow smiley face.  So where you see a somewhat yellow smiley face is the state of Tabasco, Mexico.  Cacao beans can only be grown 20 degrees N or S of the equator.  So you are looking at Southern parts of Mexico, Central and South America, Ivory Coast in Africa and SE Asia.  Beans can be dried by sun like the next picture or they can use larger blowers.

Drying beans by sun

The ups and downs of a Small business.  You can’t fight it, you just have to embrace it.