Broccoli (Brassica oleracea L.) was purchased from Kanesue
Supermarket inGifu, Japan. Forty headswere sortedand selectedfor
uniform size and absence of visual defects. They were then divided into two groups,
one used for HST (hot water-based), and the other for CST (icewater-based).
The treatments are shown in Table 1. Five heads of each group were used as control samples. After the treatment,the broccoli was stored at 20 ◦C in the dark. Color data were recorded daily for replicates of five heads until the color of the controls reached 20, the point at which broccoli florets begin to yellow
(color formula shown in Section 2.3).
The results from this preliminary test were used to select optimal HST and CST treatments for the main experiment