Comparative study on the effect of different methods of drying on mentha piperita essence

摘要

Drying is one of the oldest maintenance crops methods after harvesting. Mentha p iperita being from Piperita family is used as medicinal herb. In the present research to investigate drying methods effect on its essence percentage, with a randomized block design with eight treatments, have done tow tests by natural way, in shade and sun and 6 experiments using mi crowave and oven, with 3 repetition. Four powers in 100, 300, 600 and 900 watt have been considered for microwave. Also, effect of oven temperatures in 50 and 70 0 C on essence composition content has been investigated. The samples have been harvested from the farm located in Niala of Galugah in 2013. In all experiments, the final weight of samples was %10 base on wet weight. The experimental results show that for nu mber of essence extracts, there were no any significant differences between methods and shade - drying was the best method for higher essence extraction.