When it comes to tea, it is often said that the whole fermentation, half fermentation and light fermentation are the same as the fermented food yogurt, wine, vinegar and so on. How are they different? Learn about the fermentation of tea leaves together.

　　What is fermentation

　　Often referred to as fermentation, it refers to the biological decomposition of organic matter. Fermentation has long been known, but its nature is nearly 200 years old. Microbial physiology strictly defined fermentation: the process by which organic matter is oxidized by organisms to oxidize and release energy is collectively known as biological oxidation.

　　Defined on fermentation industrial production, industrial fermentation: industrial production on everything in general to achieve industrial production by microbial life activities are called fermentation, such as brewing, monosodium glutamate production, etc. In food fermentation: fermented food refers to the people of beneficial microorganisms, processing and manufacturing of food with unique flavor, such as yogurt, cheese, whose, pickles, soy sauce, vinegar, lobster sauce, rice wine, beer, wine, etc.

　　The fermentation of tea - biological oxidation.

　　It is often said that Chinese tea is divided into six types of tea according to the degree of fermentation and the comprehensive method. But the word fermented here, in the context of Chinese tea usage, is completely different from the aforementioned microbial fermentation. In tea, the same green leaves are processed into green tea, black tea and oolong tea by controlling biological oxidation. This process is also mistakenly called fermentation. This process is more like a series of enzymatic reactions, perhaps more called biological oxidation. The biooxidation of tea leaves is a series of oxidative processes in the cell wall that promote catechins.

　　In tea cells, catechins exist in the cell fluid, and oxidase is mainly found in the cell wall, not mainly in microorganisms, so the cell wall needs to be damaged. This naturally explains why the fermented tea needs to be twisted. According to the different oxidation degree of polyphenols, the whole fermentation, half fermentation and light fermentation were also distinguished. In black tea, polyphenols have a high degree of oxidation, which is called full fermentation. In oolong tea, the polyphenols are oxidized by about half, which is called half fermentation.

　　For example, in black tea processing, the purpose of fermentation is to oxidize the catechins in the leaves. The leaf color changes from green to copper red to produce black tea unique color. After tea liquid membrane damage, polyphenols, amino acids and other substances within the vacuole, gradually oxidized, at the same time due to the oxidation of catechin, part of material chemistry in the leaves, quality of generated unique black tea aroma.

　　The above is the basic meaning of fermentation in Chinese tea. However, due to China's tea variety, rich and colorful, processing technology and know-how for the definition of quality is different, in some tea in the course of production and quality, in addition to the above in addition to its enzymatic reaction of biological oxidation in the sense of fermentation, will also participate in some links have microorganisms. For example, the fermentation process of puer tea cooked tea, besides the enzymatic effect, is also involved in microorganism. The main microorganisms were aspergillus Niger, aspergillus aspergillus, aspergillus aspergillus, aspergillus Niger, lactobacillus and yeasts. Still, we need to distinguish microbes in fermented and biological oxidation in the sense of fermentation, otherwise, the concept of fuzzy, easy to cause you to misread the formation mechanism of tea quality.