Roasting is one of the most important technological unit operations in processing of cocoa beans; its conditions essentially determine the quality of the product. The aim of this research was to optimize the temperature and relative humidity of air used for convective roasting of cocoa beans in order to minimize migration of lipids from the kernel toward the husk and thus to improve properties of roasted material with respect to further steps of processing. Three temperatures (110, 135 and 150 degrees C) and two distinct values of relative air humidity (0.30-0.97 and 5.0%) were chosen at a constant air flow rate of 1.0 m/s for convective roasting of cocoa beans of Ivory Coast variety.