Contribution of traditional deep fermentation to volatile metabolites and odor characteristics of Wuyi rock tea

Xiaoli Jia; Yuhua Wang; Qisong Li; Qi Zhang; Ying Zhang; Shaoxiong Lin; Pengyuan Cheng; Meihui Chen; Mengru Du; Jianghua Ye; Haibin Wang

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2023.1193095

Contribution of traditional deep fermentation to volatile metabolites and odor characteristics of Wuyi rock tea

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2023 May 16:11:1193095. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2023.1193095. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ College of Tea and Food, Wuyi University, Wuyishan, China.
² College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China.
³ College of Life Science, Longyan University, Longyan, China.

Abstract

Fermentation is extremely important for the formation of the special flavor of Wuyi rock tea. This study determined volatile metabolite contents using GC-MS technique and futher analyzed their odor characteristics during the traditional deep fermentation technology of Wuyi rock tea. The results showed that 17 characteristic compounds significantly changed during the first stage of the preliminary processing, namely fresh leaves, withering and fermentation. The key to the formation of floral aroma lied in dihydromyrcenol, and the woody aroma derived from six terpenoids, and their synthesis depended on dihydromyrcenol content. The fruity aroma was dominated by six esters, and the fruity aroma mainly came from (Z) -3-hexen-1-yl butyrate, (E) -3-hexen-1-yl butyrate and 5-Hexenyl butyrate. This study provided an important theoretical and practical basis for improving the preliminary processing of Wuyi rock tea.

Keywords: Wuyi rock tea; characteristic compound; fermentation; odor characteristics; volatile metabolome.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2016M600493), National 948 project (2014-Z36), Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province (2020J01369, 2020J01408, 2022J01139), Fujian Outstanding Research Talent Cultivation Project, National Program for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training of Students (202111312023X, 202211312002), Nanping City Science and Technology Plan Project (NP2021KTS06), Faculty and students co-creation team of Wuyi University (2021-SSTD-01, 2021-SSTD-05), Youth Top Talent Training Program of Longyan University (2019ZJ19), Science and Technology Innovation Specialty of Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (KFb22046XA), Ecology first-class discipline construction Project of Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University.