Drying is a race between removing water and keeping everything else. Water invites mould and makes a crop impossible to store, so it has to go. But the volatile oils that give a herb its scent leave at a lower temperature than most people expect, and once they are gone nothing brings them back.
Forced-air dryers running hot will finish a batch in hours. They also strip the top notes and bleach the colour, which is why aggressively dried mint smells flat and looks grey rather than green. The saving in time is paid for in the product.
Shade and open air take days instead, and they demand space, turning and attention. What they give back is a leaf that still smells like the field it came from. We check moisture on the way rather than at the end, because a batch pulled a day early keeps better than one left a day too long.
For a buyer, the test is simple enough: crush a little between your fingers. If the scent lifts immediately and the colour is close to what the plant looked like growing, it was dried with care.
