NIB

Nib. What a strange little word. Nib of a pen. The point of intersection between thought, tool and word. Nibs of a cacao bean. The very germ of chocolate. Coffee nib. Yum. Nib? Beak of a bird? Lump of lint?

nib (nĭb), n.  [Cf. MLG. nibbe beak.  See NEB.]  1. Zool. A bill or beak.
2. The point of a pen; often, each of the two (rarely more) divisions of the point of a pen; also, the whole pen, as of steel or gold, intended for insertion into a holder.
3. A pointed part; a point; a prong.
4. One of the handles which project from a sythe snath; also, Dial. Eng., the shaft or pole of a wagon.
5. pl. a Particles of crushed cacao beans. b Coffee beans
6. A kink, knot, or lump of lint in a woven fabric.
7. A small sharp-pointed projecting part, as a scorer.
8. A bead at the center of each leaf of a leaf spring, fitting into depressions in the adjoining leaf to prevent longitudinal movement of the leaves relative to one another.
nib (nĭb), v. t.; NIBBED (nĭbd); NIB´BING. a To furnish with a nib; to point. b To mend the point of (a pen). c To crush (cacao beans) to nibs.
nib (nĭb), v. t. & i.  a Obs. To pick.  b Now Dial. To nibble. c Slang. To nab.
nib (nĭb), n.  [Cf. NOB OF A SWELL.]  A gentleman; a swell  Cf. NIBS. Slang, Eng.  Oxf. E. D. –nib´like´ (-līk´), adj–nib´some – (-sŭm), adj.
nibbed (nĭbd), adj.  Having a nib.
nib´ber (nĭb´er), n.  One who or that which nibs; as: a One who puts nibs on buckles, etc. b A machine for crushing cacao beans; also its operator c A tool for nibbing a pen.

I am interested, you see, because I work in a chocolate factory as an assistant factotum and sometime nibber.

1

GERMINATION

In a sterile laboratory, scientists have mapped the genome of Theobroma Cacao. On hearing this news, the Dalai Lama was heard to exclaim, “Yippee, what a relief!”

On a fecund, moist jungle floor, shady with the green canopy overhead, a few dots of sunlight here and there that dance around some if ever there is a breeze strong enough to move the heavy green parasol, a small mound of soil the size of a large marble slowly erupts and the seed of a Theobroma Cacao tree rears up its head. What was seed is now a small brown brain hemisphered and furrowed atop a light green fuzzy stem. After days, the brain halves and spreads apart like cupped hands to reveal a single set of tiny and delicate opposite leaves. It grows. And becomes a tree. Strange orchid-like grandiflorum flowers bloom on the trunk and metamorphose into pods that gradate from green to yellow to red. Heavy now, the pod falls to the jungle floor and bursts open revealing a mass of nuggets huddled together in a goo not unlike placenta. So maybe an animal saunters or scurries or crawls on over to the broken egg and licks off the albumen, carries off a few nutty beans and buries them for a rainy day. Or, the beans lay untouched there in the garden and respirate wild inside the embryonic goo (now there’s a Buddhist notion for ya). Fermentation. Cocoa beans.

2

DISCOVERY

Perhaps a featherless biped strolls along a jungle path. Hungry. Fermented beans lay scattered about on the ground beneath a small and odd looking tree that has once elaborate flowers now in various stages of wilt, and two over large testicles, hanging from its trunk. The creature uses odd fleshy tools at the end of appendages that sprout from its torso to pick up a bean. Sniffs it. Licks it. Bites it. It gathers many nuts and places them in a pouch made from a banana tree leaf.

Mate and offspring chew the nutbean and spit it out frowning. Creature takes several beannuts and places them in coals near the edge of the fire. It removes the beans from the fire and places them in a hole in the center of a tree stump. Takes up a worn and polished thick stick and thrusts it into the tree stump hole and grinds the beans. Creature scoops out the ground beans which are now warm and tacky. The creature molds the substance into an elongated egg shape. Tastes it. Gives to mate and offspring, They chew and begin to nod and smile.

3

SORTING

We find all kinds of crazy things in the beans that come from Ivory Coast, Uganda, Madagascar, Ghana, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and India. String, paper, duff, rocks, bugs, sticks and even the occasional feather of the rare and elusive Coco bird find their way into the beans of the Theobroma Cacao tree which come in burlap and sisal bags which arrive from various parts of the world.

We inspect and sort and remove the debris. And some cacao beans don’t make the cut: flats without nibs, beans hollowed out by insects, ill-fermented moldy beans, and gnarly conglomerates of mostly husk get tossed. I sent a memo to my boss questioning whether or not this practice was discriminatory. Some viable beans never have the chance to reinvent themselves as chocolate. Physically challenged beans. Unattractive beans. Determined at the whim of the sorter.

One can get a lot of thinking done while sorting beans. But then again, self-conscious thought and chocolate are ill-sorted partners.

4

ROASTING

Proprietary. None of your damn business.

5

CRACKING and WINNOWING

I imagine it’s what a poet does most days: cracking and winnowing; nib from husk; wheat from chaff; gem from surrounding rock. Poring and pouring and a gnashing of teeth, huffing and puffing, inhale and exhale, discarding, collecting, and finally a little herd of words, a poem in a vessel: chocolate essence. After roasting the sorted beans, they cool on trays, if you cracked them warm you would have a chocolate liqueur mess, so cool, pour , a whizzing of blades, vacuum, winnow and nibs in a tub. Weigh them then and pray for a recipe from on high.

5

Customer Tails

There may have been two out of the tens of thousands of customers served at the Nuance Café whose derrieres we were glad to see pass through the shop door and go on out to the street and hopefully never return. I was in the shop one pleasant afternoon when a middle-aged woman flipped out because there were no nipples of Venus truffles. And then there was the guy who liked to fashion hunks of untempered white chocolate and dark chocolate into large (meaning over-sized) penises and sell them to his unique customers.

Other times there are just some strange questions and stranger comments made by our wonderful and appreciative clients. Just the other day, I was enjoying a sipping chocolate at the café, and there was a precocious, obviously home-schooled, young lad in the shop with his doting Mother, and to the question, “What kind of chocolate do you like best?” he replied, “Well, I used to like white chocolate, but then I realized that white chocolate, wasn’t really chocolate, so now I like—” I felt a need to, not correct the young lad, but to redirect his thinking, I said to the young man, “It all comes from the same place!” (the stunningly miraculous Theobroma Cacao tree.) What I wanted to say to the question of whether white chocolate is chocolate was, “Yer splittin’ hairs, Dude! Yer hackin’ yer way though an open door there, Pardner! There’s a gol derned hole in the hay barn roof of yer reasoning, son: It all comes from the luscious bounty of the beautiful cacao bean which happens to grow on the amazingly lovely Theobroma Cacao tree.