This work was done to ascertain the feasibility of obtaining caramel from malted tubers of Cyperus esculentus The tubers of C. esculentus were partially germinated for 10 days and sun-dried for 24 h. The sun-dried samples were then kilned at 70 degrees C for 24 h and at 120 degrees C for 5 h for further caramelization. The kilned samples were finely crushed, infused with deionized water at 60 degrees C and the malt extract heated up to 127 degrees C, to give a brown-black syrupy substance, caramel, with specific gravity 38.97 +/- 0.77 degrees Be. Reducing sugars as D-glucose in the unmalted tubers before and additional sugars after hydrolysis for 30 min were 24.75 +/- 4.54 and 64.80 +/- 2.28 mg/g of sample, and in the green malt 123.13 +/- 4.28 and 82.07 +/- 4.13 mg/g of sample, respectively. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.