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This study was undertaken with the objective to study physical and optical properties of cherry pepper at two maturity stages viz., raw green and mature red. The physico-optical properties studied include moisture content, size, sphericity, surface area, unit mass, bulk density, true density, porosity, and colour. The average moisture content of raw green cherry pepper was 89.22±2.19 % wet basis which was higher than the moisture content of mature red cherry pepper (78.59±1.15% wet basis). The average geometric mean diameter, sphericity, surface area, unit mass were 16.68±1.9 mm, 1.14±0.15, 8.74±1.59 cm2, 2.08±0.11 g respectively for raw green cherry pepper, and 15.84±1.84 mm, 1.01±0.17, 8.55±1.10 cm2, 1.61±0.23 g respectively for mature red cherry pepper. The average bulk density, true density and porosity were measured to be 501.7±29.7 kg.m-3, 809.1±21.2 kg.m-3 and 35.87±3.26% respectively for raw green cherry peppers and 380.6±54.6 kg.m-3, 782.3±18.1 kg.m-3 and 51.4±3.81% respectively for mature red cherry pepper. The mature cherry peppers showed more darkening and high intensity of red colour compared to the green samples.

Key words: Cherry pepper; Maturity; Physical properties; Colour