From Table 3 it can be seen that the DE and L of continuous dehumidification controlled trials showed a deteriorating trend as the drying temperature increased. However, when the samples were treated by PDTHIC at the same absolute humidity condition, the DE values decreased from 38.97 to 35.37 and L increased from 46.29 to 47.55 as the drying temperature increased from 50 to 70 C, respectively. This might be because elevated thermal processing could inactivate polyphenol oxidase. [73] Therefore, less color loss might be determined with increasing drying temperature within certain limits for the PDTHIC process at the same absolute humidity condition. Hence, it can be concluded that the quality of dried apricots was significantly affected by the PDTHIC process and the variation trend of parameters was different from the former study mainly due to the dehydration mechanism.