Effect of Exogenous Neutral Protease Fermentation on Cigar Leaf Quality

¹ Sichuan China Tobacco Industry Co., Ltd, Chengdu 610101, China
² Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of CNTC, Zhengzhou 450001, China

^* Corresponding author: ayzhqi@126.com

Abstract

In order to reveal the effect of exogenous neutral protease addition on the quality of cigar tobacco leaves during fermentation. Taking Sichuan Shifang cigar tobacco leaves as the research object, the changes of conventional chemical composition, amino acid content, organic acids and other substances in tobacco leaves after natural fermentation and fermentation with exogenous enzyme preparations were investigated, and the changes of sensory quality of cigar tobacco leaves before and after fermentation were also investigated. The results show that: 1) After fermentation, the content of total sugar, reducing sugar, total nitrogen, chlorogenic acid and rutin in tobacco leaves decreased, and the content of reducing sugar fermented with enzyme preparation decreased more. 2) After fermentation, the total amount of free amino acids in tobacco leaves increased. With the increase of exogenous neutral protease, the content of amino acids first increased and then decreased. 3) After fermentation, the content of organic acids in tobacco leaves increased. When the amount of enzyme added was 2.5g/kg leaves, the increase of organic acid content was greater than that of natural fermentation, and the other additions of enzyme were close to that of natural fermentation. 4) After fermentation, the content of plastid pigment in tobacco leaves decreased slightly. With the increase of neutral protease, the content of plastid pigment increased. 5) After the fermentation of exogenous enzyme preparation, the sensory quality of tobacco leaves is improved, but too much protease will produce bitter taste.