With CO2 at sub-critical conditions (298K and 8–10MPa) the maximum yield could be achieved with longer contact time of the solvent with the seeds (3–4 h). The value of solvent/solid recorded for the maximum yield was around 2.7 while a value of 2.0 was estimated at the best supercritical extraction conditions (Fig. 2 and Table 1). It is of practical importance that the increase of pressure from 8 to 10MPa at sub-critical temperature (298K or 25 ◦C) caused the yield to significantly increase, but no significant increase was found in the amount of extract with increasing the temperature to 308K (35 ◦C). It is believed that high-pressures and temperatures (supercritical conditions) are necessary for the solubility of non-volatile fraction of cardamom oil in SC-CO2, but marked loss of in the volatile fraction is expected, while sub-critical temperatures have preferable effect on reducing the heat-induced loss of essential oils of cardamom extract.