Study of drying characteristics of large-cardamom

India is the largest producer of large-cardamom in the world with 54% share in world production followed by Nepal (33%) and Bhutan (13%). For long-duration storage of cardamom and in order to bring out its aroma, the fresh cardamom capsules (with 80-85% moisture) has to be dried immediately after harvesting to bring down its moisture content to less than 10% (w.b.) through a curing (drying) process. Still a primitive and inefficient (operating efficiency level of about 5-15%) smoking method (using traditional bhatti) is being used for drying of large-cardamom resulting in huge (estimated 20,000 MT/yr) wastage of fuel wood and poor (charred and blackened) quality product. This paper gives a brief description of efforts made to obtain basic drying parameters of large-cardamom (which is a pre-requisite for dryer design) under different operating conditions. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.