Abstract
True lavender flowers (Lavandula angustifolia Mill.) is a critical source of essential oils and a flavouring agent used in numerous industries like foods, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Its main volatile constituents are linalool and linalyl acetate, which are commonly considered as main odour-active constituents (OACs). Nevertheless, the quality of true lavender flowers is highly dependent on its post-harvest treatment, mainly the preservation method. Recognising that drying is the most frequently used preservation method, the influence of various drying methods, including convective drying (CD) at 50, 60 and 70 °C, vacuum-microwave drying (VMD) with powers 240, 360 and 480 W and combined convective pre-drying at 60 °C followed by vacuum-microwave finish-drying with power 480 W (CPD-VMFD), on the quality of true lavender flowers was verified. The evaluation of influence was carried out by HS-SPME(HS, solid-phase microextraction), GC-MS, GC-MS-O (gas chromatography–mass spectrometry–olfactometry) techniques. Moreover, the sensory panel has assessed the sample odour quality. As a result, the optimal drying methods regarding the requirements for products were established. Overall, for total essential oil recovery, CD at 50 °C is the optimal drying method, while for odour quality concerning the sensory panel evaluation, VMD with power 360 W combined CPD-VMFD and CD at 50 °C is the optimal drying method.
Highlights
Lavandula genus is a large group of tremendously useful plants and, along with such herbs like rosemary, basil or sage, belongs to the Lamiacae family
This study aimed to evaluate various drying techniques and/or their specific parameters by examining their effect on true lavender flower essential oil (EO), headspace (HS) volatile composition, EO composition and sensory quality
Flower dehydrated by the convective drying (CD), vacuum-microwave drying (VMD) and convective pre-drying (CPD)-VMD methods, characterized by high values of the determination coefficient (R2 > 0.99) and low root-mean squared error (RMSE) values (
Summary
Lavandula genus is a large group of tremendously useful plants and, along with such herbs like rosemary, basil or sage, belongs to the Lamiacae family. The most well-known representative of Lavandula sp. Its visibility is caused by numerous applications, both of the plant and its derivatives in pharmacy, aromatherapy, perfumes and cosmetics, food flavouring and preservation, household products or just as a decorative plant [1,2]. With its characteristic violet flowers and narrow leaves, are native to Europe, mainly the Mediterranean area, North America and Australia. The largest cultivations are located in France, Bulgaria and Turkey. In Bulgaria its cultivation area reaches more than 6000 ha, and the Turkish production of lavender flowers oscillates around 50–75 tons per ha [3,4,5,6]
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