The third bean field cards are set to the side and will be used later. All of the other cards are shuffled and five cards are dealt to each player. Players pick up their cards but can not rearrange them. The cards need to stay in the order that they were dealt to the player. The rest of the bean cards are placed face down and form the draw pile. The player to the left of the dealer goes first.
In the variations section of the rulebook there are also guidelines on what cards should be removed from the game in order to shorten the length of the game. Based on the number of players the rules recommend the following:
- 3 players: Remove the Cocoa Bean cards from the game. Each player also start the game with the 3rd bean field card. The game also ends when the draw deck is exhausted twice.
- 4-5 players: Remove the Coffee Bean cards.
- 6-7 players: Remove the Cocoa Bean and Garden Bean cards. The first player is dealt three cards, the second player four cards, the third player five cards, and the rest of the players receive six cards. When drawing cards each player will draw four cards instead of three. The 3rd bean field cards also only cost two gold coins instead of three.
