**4. The traditional method of tamarind processing**

In general, tamarind processing is done using both wet and dry processes. Tamarind is usually processed in a dry manner, with the process of drying (the whole tamarind to avoid pulp sticking to the hull), dehulling, defining, deseeding, pressing into cakes, and storage being the most prevalent process. The dehulling of tamarind entails sun drying the harvested entire tamarind and then pounding the hull away from the pulp with sticks (**Figure 2**).

It is necessary to remove the seeds and it's one of the most essential and laborintensive processes (**Figure 3**). In the northern region of Tamil Nadu, the current method of deseeding tamarinds is by the manual pounding of the vertically aligned fruits with a hammer or wooden mallet by female laborers (**Figure 4**). Tamarind is deseeded by hand pounding, where a stone mortar is coated with oil, usually castor oil, and a wooden pestle is used to exert impact stress. A knife or a long sharp needle is also used to remove the seeds. The traditional approaches are rough, unhygienic, labor intensive, and time-consuming. As a result, to make tamarind processing easier, state agricultural universities created and released machinery for the benefit of processors and to ensure hygienic practices in processing (**Figure 5**).


#### **Table 1.**

*Engineering properties of whole and dehulled tamarind fruit.*

**Figure 2.** *Labors beating the dried whole tamarind as part of dehulling.*

*Postharvest Technology - Recent Advances, New Perspectives and Applications*

**Figure 3.** *Women workers are deseeding tamarind.*

**Figure 4.** *Defibering action.*

**Figure 5.** *Pressing action of deseeded tamarind into rubber ring to form cake.*
