Abstract
The natural fermentation of cigar tobacco leaves usually utilizes natural temperature and humidity for fermentation. Cigars produced in China are often fermented in winter, and the low environmental temperatures can lead to slow heating of the tobacco stack, affecting the cigar tobacco leaves quality. This study aimed to determine the minimum chamber temperature required to initiate the process of fermentation for cigar tobacco leaves and to explore the impact of temperature on the microbial community of tobacco leaves. Here, the cigar variety “Dexue 1” were subjected to stacking fermentation under three temperature parameters (20 ℃, 27 ℃, 34 ℃). With an increase in environmental temperature, the temperature inside the stack of cigar leaves increased significantly, the protein, total sugar, starch, and total alkaloid content in fermented tobacco leaves decreased, and the aroma components and amino acid content increased. Microbial richness and community diversity associated with fermented tobacco were highest at chamber temperatures of above 27 ℃. The relative abundance of Chryseobacterium and Rhodococcus was significantly negatively correlated with protein, alkaloids, total sugar, and starch, and positively correlated with amino acids and aroma components. Chryseobacterium and Rhodococcus may be responsible for the degradation of macromolecular substances and the conversion of favorable aromatic substances, thus improving the tobacco leaves quality. This study demonstrated that increasing the fermentation chamber temperature above 27 ℃ was conductive to raising the inner-stack temperature, increased microbial diversity and aromatic quality, reduced the strength and irritation, and extremely enhanced the overall quality of fermented cigar tobacco leaves.
Key points
• The environmental temperature of the fermentation chamber has a significant impact on the quality of tobacco
• Temperature > 27 ℃ can initiate the process of cigar tobacco leaves fermentation and increase inner-stack temperature and microbial diversity and abundance
• Chryseobacterium and Rhodococcus may be related to the degradation of macromolecular substances and the transformation of aromatic substances, thereby improving the quality of tobacco leaves
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All Illumina MiSeq data in this study have been submitted to the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database under the BioProject accession number PRJNA979898, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA979898.
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We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.cn) for English language editing.
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This work was supported by the Sichuan Provincial Tobacco Company of China (grant number SCYC202124).
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MJR performed the experiments, collected and analyzed the data, and drafted and reviewed the manuscript. LYZ conducted experiments and collected. YQQ, ZYY, RNZ, and HZS contributed to the study design, protocol development, and reviewed the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Ren, M., Qin, Y., Zhang, L. et al. Effects of fermentation chamber temperature on microbes and quality of cigar wrapper tobacco leaves. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 107, 6469–6485 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-023-12750-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-023-12750-7