Nutmeg and Betel Nut

CS 2101 – Handling of Products from Perennial, Field and
Horticultural Crops
Harvesting and Processing of Export
Agricultural Crops
Independent learning
AG/12/FT/024
W.A.G.E. WIJELATH

Question – 01
Nutmeg
Taxonomy
Family - Myristicaceae
Species -Myristica Fragrans
Introduction
Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans) is native of Moluccas in East
Indonesia. It has been reported that the plants have been
introduced into Sri Lanka in the beginning of nineteenth
century. Nutmeg plant is a spreading evergreen tree reaches
up to 15-20 m height. The leaves are alternate, dark
green, pinnatinerved. Flowers are generally unisexual and
dioecious. However, bisexual flowers of varying sexual
composition can also be found. Occasional trees with male
and female flowers are also seen in the plantations. Fruits are
fleshy drupes, broadly pyriform, drooping with a
circumferential longitudinal ridge. Fruit colour turns into
yellow during the ripening and the pericarp splits into 2 halves exposing purplish-brown, shiny seed
surrounded by a net like red aril. Indonesia, Grenada, Sri Lanka, Trinidad, China and India are the
major countries producing nutmeg and mace. The world trade of these two spices is in the range of
8,000 -10,000 MT. Nutmeg tree yield two spices, nutmeg, which is the kernel of the seed and mace,
which is the net-like crimson colored leathery out growth (aril) covering the shell of the seed.
Field Planting and Spacing
The seedlings are field planted at the beginning of the rainy season. In Nutmeg, there are separate
male and female trees but the sex of the trees can be identified only after flowering. In general,
about 50% of seedlings will be males. Therefore, the initial spacing may be about 6 m x 6 m and after
flowering, they may be thinned out. Male trees do not fruit but are essential for pollination, for which
1 male to 10 female trees is adequate.
Harvesting
The tree bears fruit when five to eight years old. There are two types of mace, West Indian and East
Indian. The fruit turn yellow when ripe and the pulpy
outer husk (pericarp) splits into two halves exposing a
purplish-brown shinny seed surrounded by a red aril.
Usually the fruits are allowed to split and fall to the
ground before harvesting. They should be collected as
soon as possible or the underside of the fruit will
become discoloured and the risk of mouldiness will be
increased. In some areas, a long pole is used to take
opened pods directly from the tree. This ensures a
better quality harvest but can also result in damage to

flowers and younger fruit.
Storing
The freshness can be maintained longer if stored in an airtight container. Keep away from heat,
moisture, and direct sunlight. These elements hasten the loss of flavor and aroma. Avoid storing over
the stove, dishwasher, sink or near a window. Should not be stored in the freezer. Freezing does not
extend the shelf life of regularly used dried spices. If stored in the freezer, and repeatedly removed
for use, condensation will form in the container and accelerate loss of flavor and aroma.
Processing
The fruits are opened by hand and the scarlet aril (mace) surrounding the nut is removed. This is
removed by cutting with a small pointed knife the attachment of the mace to the base of the nut
(nutmeg). Care needs to be taken to avoid damage to the nut, alternatively, the nuts can be shelled
by tipping them onto a sloping cement floor from a height of three to four metres. Another option is
to soak the nuts in water for four to twelve hours and then squeezed between the thumb and
forefinger until the nut pops out.
The separated mace is flattened by hand and dried on mats in the sun. This takes between two and
four hours. Grenadian mace is cured by storage in the dark for four months. This produces a brittle,
pale yellow mace that attracts a premium price and is graded according to size, the bigger the mace,
the better the premium. After grading the mace can be classified and bagged. The mace will also
need to be fumigated.
The nutmegs are dried in their shells in the sun and are turned each day to prevent fermentation. The
nuts are sufficiently dry when they rattle. This takes about one week. Sometimes artificial dryers are
used. To produce shelled nutmegs, they should be cracked by tapping the end of the nuts with a
small wooden mallet. If the nuts are tapped on the side there is a possibility that the kernel may be
bruised. Once dried the nuts can be stored for a considerable time.
Cracking the shell is often done by machine. Often machine are of the centrifugal type in which the
rotary motion of the machine forces the nut to be thrown at high speed against the inside of a drum.
Once the cracking has been completed, the nuts are sorted. Whole kernels will be separated from the
broken pieces of kernel.
Floatation in water is used to remove unsound kernels, as these kernels are lighter than water and
float to the surface. They can then be easily removed. The sound kernels can then be sorted based on
their quality and size. Good quality whole kernels are separated from the lower quality and broken
kernels. Sizing can be carried out using different mesh sized sieves. Sorted kernels are then bagged
and labelled appropriately. For export, the bagged nutmeg is fumigated with methyl bromide.
Value Addition
Value added products from nutmeg
i. Nutmeg powder: Dried nutmeg is ground to fine powder to be used in various end products.
ii. Nutmeg oil: The essential oil from nutmeg is steam distilled and the oil percentage varies from 5-
150/0. The essential oil is highly sensitive to light and temperature and yields a colourless, pale
yellow or pale green oil with characteristic odour of nutmeg. The essential oil obtained by steam
distillation of ground nutmeg is used widely in pharmaceutical industries. This volatile fraction

typically contains 60-80% d-camphene by weight, as well as quantities of d-pinene, limonene, d-
borneol, l-terpineol, geraniol, safrol, and myristicin. The oil is colourless or light yellow, and smells
and tastes of nutmeg. It contains numerous components of interest to the oleochemical industry, and
is used as a natural food flavouring in baked goods, syrups, beverages, and sweets. It is used to
replace ground nutmeg, as it leaves no particles in the food. The essential oil is also used, for
instance, in toothpaste, and as a major ingredient in some cough syrups. In traditional medicine,
nutmeg and nutmeg oil were used for disorders related to the nervous and digestive systems.
iii. Nutmeg oleoresin: Nutmeg oleoresin is obtained by solvent extraction of spices. Oleoresins
contain saturated volatile oil, fatty oil and other extractives soluble in the particular solvent. Nutmeg
oleoresin is extracted with organic solvent and yields about 10-12% of oleoresin.
iv. Nutmeg butter: The fixed oil of nutmeg is known as nutmeg butter with a consistency of butter at
ambient temperature. Nutmeg butter contains 25 to 400/0 fixed oil and can be obtained by pressing
the crushed nuts between plates in the presence of steam or hot water.
v. Mace oleoresin: When extracted with petroleum ether mace yields 10 to 130/0 oleoresin.
vi. Mace oil: is obtained by steam distillation of dried aril and yields 4-17% oil. It is colourless liquid
with characteristic odour and flavour. Mace oil is more expensive than nutmeg oil.
vii. Nutmeg jelly : Nutmeg jelly can be made from the pericarp.
Culinary Uses
Nutmeg is used in sweet and spicy dishes like pies, custard, cookies spice cakes, cheese sauces,
soups, egg and vegetables dishes. Mace is often preferred in light colored dishes for the bright
orange, saffron-like color it imparts.
Beetle Nut
Taxonomy
Family : Arecaceae
Species : Areca catechu
Introduction
Arecanut or betel nut (Areca catechu) has been
originated in Philippines. Arecanut is widely cultivated in
countries like China, Taiwan, India, Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka, Maldives and Malaysia. Areca catechu is a
medium-sized palm tree, growing straight to 20 m tall, with
a trunk 10–15 cm in diameter. The leaves are 1.5–2 m
long, pinnate, with numerous, crowded leaflets. The areca
nut is not a true nut, but rather a fruit categorized as
a drupe. It is commercially available in dried, cured and
fresh forms. When the husk of the fresh fruit is green, the nut inside is soft enough to be cut with a typical
knife. In the ripe fruit, the husk becomes yellow or orange and, as it dries, the fruit inside hardens to a
wood-like consistency. At that stage, the areca nut can only be sliced using a special scissor-like cutter.
The world trade of areca nut is about 0.64million tons.

Harvesting
During the harvest season, the ripened fruits are harvested. Minimum two people with required skills
are necessary to accomplish this. One professional tree climber with experience of plucking the fruits
and another person who uses gunny bag to catch it when the fruits are falling down are involved.
Before the tree climber decides to pluck all the fruits, first he plucks only one/two fruits and indicates
the other person to check it. The catcher tastes the fruit and indicates the plucker whether to go
ahead or not. Finding skilled labour is a problem in arecanut production.
Processing
Once the fruit bunches are plucked from the tree, it is separated to get the individual fruits. This is
done simultaneously when the plucking process is going on.
Peeling is one of the most important activities in the entire
arecanut processing. The raw fruit is peeled in order to get its
kernel. This is done within a day or two after harvesting.
Otherwise, the cutting will not be easy at all. Since it is a heavy
and intensive manual work, a minimum of 7-8 people working
for an entire day is needed to peel the arecanut raw fruits of
14-15 gunny bags (800-900 kgs).
Immediately after the kernel is taken out, it is boiled with high
temperature for minimum of 12 hrs. For efficiency purposes, two huge metallic vessels of capacity of
600 litres are used. The arecanut kernel is filled in to the vessel mixing with sufficient water. Along
with the water, the arecanut precipitate is mixed to get good colour.
After boiling the areca nut kernel for about 12 hrs, another crucial step is to sun dry the boiled kernel.
This drying process is done for minimum of 7-10 days. During drying nuts are turned over from time
to time in order to ensure uniform drying and to improve product quality. This is the last step of
areca nut processing. Once the drying process is over, it is packed in and kept for any number of days
before selling it in the retail market.
Value Addition
In Sri Lanka, value addition to areca nut is minimum. But in some other countries value addition is
done to areca nut.
In India, the nut is broken down into small pieces and sold as sachet packets.
Tannings is obtained as a by-product from processing of immature nuts. They are used for dyeing
clothes, tanning leather and as a food colour.
The areca nut contains 8-12% fat. Fat in the nut can be extracted and used for confectionary
purposes. Refined areca nut fat is harder than cocoa butter and can be used for blending purposes.

The husk of areca nut is rich in fibre. It is primarily used as an inferior fuel and recent research is done
to make plastic boards, plastic and brown wrapping paper. It is also used as a substrate for
mushroom cultivation.
The stem of areca nut is used as a building material.
In Sri Lanka, the major issue in nutmeg and areca nut production is low quality and less hygiene
practices. Hence the price is lowered. In order to increase the quality and obtain a higher price, the
farmers and persons involved in the production line should be educated on novel technology,
importance of hygienic manufacturing practices and value addition to products.
References
Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India (2010) Directorate of Arecanut and Spices Development
[online] Available from: http://dasd.gov.in/index.php/arecanut.html?showall=1 [Accessed on:
21/05/2015]
GM Group of Companies (2013) Arecanut Processing [online] Available from:
http://www.gmgroup.in/arecanut-processing.html [Accessed on: 21/05/2015]
Guido B. Marcelle (1995) Production, handling and processing of nutmeg and mace and their culinary
uses [online] Available from: http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5047e/x5047e00.HTM [Accessed on:
20/05/2015]

Nutmeg and Betel Nut

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