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Abstract. The sweating is an essential pretreatment before the drying process of the herb Poria cocos. In recent years, the processing main body usually uses the steaming or directly peeled and cut fresh Poria cocos (without pretreatment) to replace the sweating. But the effects of different pretreatments on the quality of Poria cocos attributes have rarely been reported and the mechanisms are not clear. So in current work, the effects of different pretreatments on quality attributes in terms of color parameter, water soluble polysaccharide and triterpenoid of Poria cocos were investigated. In addition, based on the quality data, three kinds of pretreatment methods were evaluated comprehensively. The results showed that: 1) Sweating could improve significantly the color parameter L* compared to without pretreatment and steaming. Poria cocos was significantly whiter and significantly improved in appearance with sweating. Color parameter a* and color parameter b* of Poria cocos were significantly enhanced by steaming. Poria cocos was significantly redder, yellower, and significantly worse in appearance with steaming. 2) The average mass fractions of water-soluble polysaccharides from Poria cocos were in the descending order: sweating (20.53 mg/g) > without pretreatment (13.75 mg/g) > steaming (11.85 mg/g). 3) The average mass fractions of triterpenoids from Poria cocos were in the descending order: without pretreatment (1.45 mg/g) > steaming (1.43 mg/g) > sweating (1.35mg/g). 3) Comprehensive evaluation results show that the Poria cocos should be pretreated with sweating.