How much dry cardamom should come back

Roughly a fifth of the green weight comes back as dry — about twenty kilos for a hundred. That is an average, not a rule.

What changes the ratio

• Maturity: immature capsules carry more water and shrink more.
• Time since picking: a load that sat for two days weighs less than one taken in straight away.
• Whether it was picked in rain: surface water is on the scale and gone after drying.
• Drying heat and time: dried harder, it weighs less — and loses colour.

How to keep it from becoming an argument

Write down the green weight when you hand it over and the dry weight when it comes back. With both numbers on every batch you know your own plot's ratio within a season — and when one batch comes out different you can say so from the record instead of from memory.

Do not judge a curing unit on one batch. Maturity and rain together can move a single batch a long way. It takes three or four before the picture is real.