Spices and herbs are important parts of human daily food consumption and play an essential role in seasoning and/or preserving food, curing illness, and enhancing cosmetics. Proper processing is necessary because the fresh produce has high moisture content and often high load of microorganisms. Dehydration is the most common method used to lower moisture content and hence the water activity to a safe limit which prolongs shelf life. However, consumers’ demand on processed products with most of the original characteristics of the fresh plants has increased. Consequently, drying must be executed carefully in the interest of retaining the taste, aroma, color, appearance, as well as nutritional value of the plants to maximum possible extent. In addition to quality considerations, drying efficiency is another key aspect for evaluating drying performance. This article reviews recent developments in the production of high dried spices and herbs. It attempts to detail the relative merits of selected recently developed drying techniques with focus on solar-assisted and microwave-assisted hybrid drying techniques which offer high-quality drying with excellent efficiency. Outlook for future research trends and challenges for dehydration of spices and herbs is also discussed.

香料和草药是人类日常食物消费的重要组成部分，在调味和/或保存食物，治愈疾病和增强化妆品方面起着至关重要的作用。必须进行适当的加工，因为新鲜农产品的水分含量高，并且微生物负荷通常很高。脱水是最常用的降低水分含量的方法，因此可以降低水分活度至安全极限，从而延长保质期。然而，消费者对具有新鲜植物的大多数原始特征的加工产品的需求增加了。因此，为了保持植物的味道，香气，颜色，外观以及营养价值，必须谨慎地进行干燥。除了质量方面的考虑之外，干燥效率是评估干燥性能的另一个关键方面。本文回顾了高干香料和草药生产的最新进展。它试图详细介绍最近选定的干燥技术的相对优点，重点是太阳能辅助和微波辅助的混合干燥技术，这些技术可提供高效率的高质量干燥。还讨论了未来研究趋势的展望以及香料和草药脱水的挑战。