Abstract
The quality of black pepper (Piper nigrum L.), the ’king of spices’, is largely dependent on the postharvest handling and processing methods. Pungency and aroma are the most important qualities of black pepper, which are attributed to its oleoresin and volatile oils, respectively. Conventional open sun drying and shade drying were tested for different pretreatment curing of black pepper. The quality improvement and reduction in drying duration were exhibited for the sun-dried samples. The highest oleoresin content (8.15% w/w) was recorded in direct open sun-dried samples, whereas in shade-dried samples it was as low as 6.96% w/w. The highest essential oil content of 2.00 mL/100g (v/w) was obtained from the berries blanched for 2 minutes and sun-dried samples. Blanching followed by direct sun drying of berries had the highest acceptability score relative to the overall quality. Therefore, the physicochemical quality analyses performed proved that blanching and sun drying are effective in producing high-quality black pepper for export.