Storage and transport
Months in a warehouse and a container. Cacao is hygroscopic, and the risk is that it takes moisture back.
Between drying and roasting a bean may sit for months. Cacao readily reabsorbs moisture from the air, and above roughly eight per cent it moulds — so beans are shipped drier than they can safely sit, and the storage conditions matter as much as the drying did.
Container shipping through the tropics introduces condensation cycling, which is why jute sacks, ventilation and desiccant liners are all part of the trade's standard practice. Infestation is a second real problem in warm humid warehousing. Neither is glamorous and both destroy value that was created upstream.
What it does
Moves the crop from producer to manufacturer without moisture reabsorption, mould growth or infestation.
Why it matters
A perfectly fermented and dried lot can arrive musty. This step protects everything the previous steps built.
- Typical duration
- 20–180 days
- Why the range is wide
- Duration is a logistics outcome rather than a technical requirement. Long warehousing is a quality risk, not an ageing benefit.
When it goes wrong
Moisture reabsorption from humid storage or container condensation, producing mould and musty flavours that no downstream step removes.
Related
Covered in
- Cocoa supply chainThe steps between the farm and the grinder, where beans are pooled and where lot identity is first lost.
Techniques that depend on this
- Handling and storing chocolateThe same physics at both ends of the chain: cocoa butter absorbs odours and moisture causes irreversible damage, whether in a shipping container or a kitchen cupboard.
Sources
- ChocolateHQ editorial synthesis — ChocolateHQ(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)
- Chocolate Science and Technology — Wiley-Blackwell(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)