Patent ID: 7097867

Claim:
A process for obtaining oleoresin of improved color and pungency from chili, the said process comprising steps of: i) treating powder or flakes of chili by mixing with an enzyme preparation, incubating at a pH in the range of 4.0 to 7.0 for a time period of 2 h to 24 h and at a temperature in the range of 20° to 50° C., ii) drying the enzyme treated chili powder or flakes of step (i) to reduce the moisture level to about 5–12%, iii) powdering or pelletizing the contents of step (ii) into a particle size of about 20–30 mesh, iv) loading the chili powder or its pellets into an extraction column and soaking in a solvent mixture for a period ranging between 1 h to 3 h; v) draining and collecting the solvent extract of step (iv) or soaking the chili powder or pellet, vi) extracting further the soaked powder or pellet of step (v) with solvent mixture, vii) repeating the steps (iv) to (vi), pooling the extracts, and viii) concentrating the pooled extract to obtain oleoresin with enriched pungency and color, wherein the solvent mixture comprises a polar solvent and a non-polar solvent, wherein in step (i), a w/w ratio of enzyme preparation to chili powder/flakes used ranges from 0.1–1.0 to 1.0–100.0 and the enzyme preparation is β-glucanase.