Clever Use of Garlic Decoction for Preserving Satsuma Mandarin

In the winter of 1985, a preservation experiment on Owari satsuma mandarin was carried out using Chinese herbal medicine treatments. The results showed that dipping the fruit in a 10% garlic decoction for 10 seconds had a good preservative effect.

The Chinese herbal medicine formulations tested were: (1) 10% decoction each of Schizonepeta tenuifolia, dandelion, galangal, Sichuan pepper, and zedoary (abbreviated as the five-ingredient mixture); (2) 10% decoction each of garlic, tea seed cake, and Chinese honey locust (abbreviated as the three-ingredient mixture); (3) 10% decoction each of tea seed cake and Chinese honey locust (abbreviated as the tea-honey locust liquid); (4) 10% tea seed cake decoction; (5) 10% garlic infusion decoction (first crush or slice the garlic, soak it in cold water for 12 hours, then decoct until boiling). The fruit was harvested on October 25, and dipping treatment was carried out on the 30th of that month. The fruit was packed in fruit boxes lined with paper and stored in an ordinary room, then put into storage on November 1.

The experimental results showed that all the Chinese herbal medicine formulations had a certain preservative effect, among which the 10% garlic decoction was the best. After 103 days of storage, the rotten fruit rate was only 10%, while the rotten fruit rates of the five-ingredient mixture, three-ingredient mixture, tea-honey locust liquid, and tea seed cake liquid were 23.0%, 26.6%, 24.5%, and 22.5% respectively, and the rotten fruit rate of the control was as high as 47.8%. Only the fruit dipped in garlic liquid had a slight garlic smell on the peel after storage, but the flesh tasted no off-flavor.