Comparative assessment of essential oil composition and yield in Cinnamomum tamala leaves upon application of different drying practices

ABSTRACT

Cinnamomum tamala or Indian bay leaf is a widely used spice in the Asian subcontinent. The aim of this study was to assess the contents and composition of essential oils and volatiles internal pool in C. tamala leaves obtained from different drying practices such as, sun drying, freeze drying, shade drying and simultaneous oven drying at 60°C and 40°C, when compared with market-available dry leaves. Out of five different practices tested, leaves when oven dried at 60°C performed best in terms of free-radical scavenging capacities, internal pool of volatile contents (257.25 ± 37.57 μg/g of dried leaf tissue) and yields of essential oils (0.25%). This was followed by freeze-dried leaves, which showed 0.2% essential oils yield. Among the natural drying, sun dried leaves exhibited high yield of essential oils (0.16%). Performance of shade dried leaves was shown to be lowest i.e. 0.11% essential oils yield but was comparable with the yield of market-available leaves.

KEYWORDS:

• Cinnamomum tamala
• essential oils
• drying
• eugenol
• antioxidant capacity
• leaf volatiles internal pool

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a research grant [BT/PR24702/NER/95/822/2017 to A. Mitra] from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India under twinning programme for north-eastern region. S. Saha was a recipient of PhD fellowship under the joint MTech-PhD programme of the institute.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10412905.2024.2350409

Author contributions

AM and SS conceived the study, SS conducted experiments and wrote the draft manuscript, RB conducted GC-FID experiment, PD standardized the essential oils extraction process and AM obtained funding, supervised the research, and finalized the manuscript. All the authors agreed with the results obtained and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India [BT/PR24702/NER/95/822/2017].