What are the processing methods for honeysuckle? A full breakdown of the detailed steps

There are 2 processing methods: sun-drying and oven-drying. (1) Sun-drying Before 1970, production areas in Shandong mostly chose a wind-sheltered, sun-facing flat surface or stone slab with long sunshine hours, spreading a thin layer of flowers in the morning and collecting them the same day after drying. This method saves labor and time, but windy days and overcast or rainy days will affect quality. Since 1970, the basket-drying method has mostly been used. A basket frame about 1.7 m long, about 0.7 m wide and 5-7 cm high is made from wooden sticks, with sorghum stalks or a mat used as the bottom (sorghum stalks are not peeled, and the mat should be used flipped over to absorb water better). Each basket dries 2.5-3 kg of fresh flowers. Place the baskets in a ventilated, sun-facing spot oriented north-south, with the north side raised; after drying to 80% dry, they can be poured onto a mat to turn and dry. At night or when rain threatens, the baskets can be stacked in the yard, with two crossbars placed between baskets and a mat (or rain cover) laid on top. When the flower buds reach 80% dry, they absolutely must not be turned, otherwise they turn black and quality declines. (2) Oven-drying This began to be used after 1975. It is mainly carried out in a drying room. The operating procedure is mainly: Pre-drying (room temperature 30°C) - loading flowers (35°C, swap the upper and lower flower baskets every 2-3 hours) → heating and ventilation (ventilate at 40°C, keep the temperature at 45-50°C within 5-10 hours, ventilate for 5 minutes each time; after 10 hours, when the temperature rises to 55°C it dries quickly, about 18 hours in total) → removing from the bed (reduce the fire 1 hour before removal and ventilate; when the temperature drops below 10°C and the honeysuckle is 80-90% dry, take the flower baskets out to air-dry). During oven-drying, the drying room generally built is a two-room type, 6 m long and 5 m wide. Two furnace openings are built at one end of the house, a return-flue bed-style fire channel is built inside the room, and a chimney and skylight are left on the roof. At 0.3 m above the ground, each room has a pair of opposite ventilation holes on the front and rear walls. Inside the room, 20 cm from the walls on both sides, one steel-bar or wooden drying rack is set up on each side, with a 1.4 m passage left between the racks. The rack is 5.6 m long, 1.6 cm wide and 2.6 m high, divided into 10 layers with 20 cm between layers. The bottom layer is 40 cm from the fire channel. Each layer holds 8 honeysuckle baskets, with 10 cm between baskets, for a total of 160 flower baskets loaded. Before loading flowers, pre-dry first to remove indoor moisture and raise the temperature. When the room temperature rises to 35°C, the flowers can be loaded. Keep the fresh flowers 3-4 cm thick, arrange the baskets neatly on the drying racks, close the doors and windows, block the ventilation holes, and begin baking. Every 2-3 hours of baking, swap the positions of the upper and lower baskets once. After the honeysuckle is loaded, immediately increase the fire. When the room temperature rises to about 40°C, the fresh flowers begin to release water, and the skylight can be opened to discharge water vapor. Within 5-10 hours, the room temperature should be kept at 45-50°C, and the ventilation holes should be opened to let water vapor out quickly. If the temperature is not enough, part or all of the ventilation holes can be blocked, and then ventilate again when the indoor moisture is high; each time only about 5 minutes. After 10 hours, most of the water vapor of the fresh flowers has been discharged, the room temperature reaches 55°C, and the honeysuckle dries quickly; one bed takes 18 hours. About 1 hour before removing from the bed, gradually reduce the fire and keep ventilating throughout. When the temperature drops below 40°C and the flowers feel firm in the hand and make a sound, the flower baskets can be taken out. Whether sun-dried or oven-dried, they should be dried (or sun-dried) once more after 1-2 days to make them thoroughly dry. At present, in Shandong production areas, flower farmers mainly use the basket-drying method, and the drying rooms have long been closed or converted to other uses. Processing plants of medicinal materials companies mostly use the sulfur fumigation method, which should now be prohibited. (3) Processing research Lu Ling'en and others, using the main active ingredients of honeysuckle, volatile oil and chlorogenic acid, as indicators, compared the effects of different processing methods on the quality of honeysuckle. They measured the total volatile oil and chlorogenic acid content of different processed products (steamed, fumigated and sun-dried, stir-fried and sun-dried, raw sun-dried) of Lonicera similis var. delavayi and Lonicera pseudotomentosa, and the results showed that the fumigated product had the highest content. Guo Hongbin and others compared 4 different processing methods for honeysuckle, namely sun-drying, shade-drying, steaming and sun-drying, and sulfur fumigation, and the results showed that the shade-drying method had the highest chlorogenic acid content, with a very significant difference compared with the other 3 methods, and the sun-drying method had the lowest chlorogenic acid content. However, the research results of Peng Guangfang and others showed that the order of chlorogenic acid content in honeysuckle under different processing methods was roughly sulfur fumigation and oven-drying > oven-drying → sun-drying → shade-drying, and they believed that honeysuckle processed by sulfur fumigation and oven-drying had the best quality, while the shade-drying method was the worst. Wu Ruying, through research on the quality of Lonicera macranthoides, found that the steamed and sun-dried product had the best quality, while the raw sun-dried product had the worst quality. Feng Weisheng and others, after measuring the chlorogenic acid content of different processed varieties, believed that nitrogen fumigation of honeysuckle could replace air-drying or oven-drying to improve the appearance quality of honeysuckle. Zhu Xiaoguang and others introduced the sulfur fumigation method for honeysuckle and believed that processing by this method could meet the requirements for appearance traits and color. After fumigation, it can be stored for 4-5 days (in the rainy season) without mold.