Abstract:Prinsepia utilis tea was inoculated with different amounts of 1.0×107 CFU/mL Eurotium cristatum spore suspension for solid-state fermentation, and the effect of E. cristatum spore suspension on the quality of P. utilis tea was evaluated by electronic nose (E-nose), electronic tongue (E-tongue), colorimetry, and human-sensory evaluations. Additionally, differences in the chemical constituents of unfermented and fermented P. utilis tea samples were analyzed by HPLC fingerprinting. The results of E-nose and E-tongue analyses revealed significant differences between unfermented and fermented P. utilis in forms of dry tea and tea liquid on the principal components, with the most significant differences in aroma and taste foundat inoculation volumes of 1.0 mL, 1.2 mL, or 1.4 mL. Colorimetry results showed that the lightness, red-green value, yellow-blue value, hue, color-difference value, and human-sensory evaluation score of P. utilis tea incubated with 1.0 mL of the spore suspension were 70.32, 8.99, 76.00, 8.45, 78.00, and 91.75, respectively. Both the colorimetric and sensory-evaluation values of P. utilis tea were close to those of high-quality FuZhuan tea in markets. Furthermore, HPLC results illustrated that the levels of chemical constituents of P. utilis tea increased significantly following the fermentation, suggesting that the fermentation of P. utilis tea by E. cristatum effectively changed its chemical constituents.
