I’ve been helping a friend who imports ingredients for a small chocolate business, and lately we’ve been looking more closely at cocoa beans storage after noticing some unexpected changes in a batch that had been sitting in storage for a few months. The beans looked perfectly normal, but the flavor profile seemed a bit different once they were processed. We’re trying to figure out whether storage conditions, humidity levels, airflow, or simply the length of storage could be responsible. For anyone with experience handling cocoa beans, what practices helped you maintain consistent quality, and were there any mistakes you learned to avoid?