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Biomass has a great potential to be used in energy generation. However, its hydrophilic nature poses a barrier to its competitiveness in energy generation. A viable option is to pretreat the biomass by torrefaction, a thermolysis process carried out at 200-300 °C in an inert environment, to overcome the associated issue. In this study, torrefaction of biomass at three different temperatures 200, 250, and 300 °C for four different residence time 10, 30, 90 and 150 min has been investigated in relation to their thermal degradation and physio-chemical evaluation. The torrefied biomass has been found to be approaching the characteristics of the coal. An overall increase in higher heating value and decrease in energy and mass yield was observed with increase in residence time and temperature. FTIR spectrum showed a clear decrease in O–H peak intensity thus hydrophobic nature of biomass was improved. TGA and DTG curves demonstrated decrease in hemicellulose content because of its dehydroxylation which is also evident from SEM micrographs.