Ⅰ.Rich Health-preserving Substances
Pu’er is a kind of tea that is made from Yunnan big-leaf sun-dried crude tea by special processing technology.Such crude tea has more contained substances than medium and smallleaf varieties.During the solid fermentation of Pu’er tea (fermented), richer health-preserving substances are finally formed under the continuous action of microorganisms.
The richness of health-preserving substances of Pu’er tea is mainly reflected in three aspects:
(1)Yunnan big-leaf tea has rich contained substances
Compared with medium and small-leaf varieties, Yunnan big-leaf tea has high contents of extract, tea polyphenols, caffeine, etc., so leaves are large and substances are abundant.
(2)Under the action of microorganisms, the substances contained in tea can be transformed and finally formed to new substances
During the processing of fermented Pu’er tea, under the action of microorganisms and hydrothermal treatment, the contained substances will undergo oxidation, degradation,polymerization and other reactions and then form new substances.During storage, the substances contained in raw Pu’er tea and fermented Pu’er tea also undergo the constant transformation, and then produce new substances.
(3)Secondary metabolites produced by microorganisms
For example, lovastatin produced by monascus is enriched in tea to form functional Pu’er tea with better lipid-lowering effect.Candida parapsilosis participates in fermentation, forming γ-aminobutyric acid which is enriched in tea to form Pu’er tea with antihypertensive effect, etc.