Supporting the communication, language, and literacy development of children with complex communication needs: State of the science and future research priorities J Light, D McNaughton Assistive Technology 24 (1), 34-44, 2012
Cool beans is a curious phrase that uses nonsense to bring humor into a joyful exclamation. It originated in American pop culture during the late 1960s. Slang of this time is known to center around illogical phrasings of words, and cool beans is among the most durable lengthy late 60's era terms. It is used when referring to something with a positive connotation, for example, That party was cool beans..
The derivation of this expression is sometimes said to be a voting  system used in ancient Greece. The story goes that white beans  indicated positive votes and black beans â¦ negative. Votes had to be  unanimous, so if the collector 'spilled the beans' before the vote  was complete and a black bean was seen, the vote was halted. That's  plausible, but doesn't account for the fact that the phrase is  first found in the early 20th century.