相比普洱生茶而言，普洱熟茶多了一道核心工艺--渥堆,由此，造就了完全不同的风格口感和品质特征。Compare to raw pu-erh, ripe pu-erh has an extra step of piling fermentation and different quality accordingly.
“渥”义为“洒水”，“堆”则很形象地展示了“渥堆”的形式。经过长达近两个月的渥堆，晒青毛茶不仅变得成熟了，正如水果成熟一样，而且还具备了生命，可以继续的后熟。所以熟茶的“熟”是一个动态的过程，但绝非餐饮中静态的“熟”， 或许，英文 ripe pu-erh 更能生动的描述普洱茶的特性，这也是我们虽然经过希望通过双语教学，传播茶文化的另一个视角。“Wo” in Chinese means to water something, and “Dui” indicates the fermenting method. After near 2 months, those leaves get ripe, just like fruits, while still able to get riper. So, ripe pu-erh is a dynamic procedure instead of being cooked. In other words, ripe can express this procedure properly. It is exactly the point to learn Chinese culture bilingually from the other perspective.
（节选自《普洱茶品鉴与进阶》中文版）普洱熟茶中的“渥堆”不仅成就了普洱茶苍劲醇厚的口感，还造就了熟茶独一无二的保健功效。“渥堆”是看得见的褐变反应，闻得到香气变化，品得出滋味转变，而看不见的却是茶叶生物细胞内庞大而复杂的系列微生物和生化反应。整个渥堆过程以微生物反应为主，酶促氧化和湿热反应为辅。Piling fermentation does not achieve the sophisticated and mellow flavor, but also creates unique medical compounds. What we can see the browning reactions, the changes of color, the smells or tastes, however, what we can’t see is the complicated reactions triggered by numerous microbes. During the whole piling process, microbes dominate the reactions, thermalization and residual enzymes work side by side.微生物不仅可以产生外源酶，从而促进茶叶酶促反应，还能生产一系列次级代谢物，增进普洱茶的风味，并代谢出一些独有的药用成分，如洛伐他汀。因此，普洱茶的品质形成都是微生物直接或者间接作用的结果。但是，庞大复杂的微生物体系，使得普洱茶的微生物菌群仍然神秘莫测。20世纪80年代末，研究者就开始陆续对普洱茶发酵过程的微生物进行研究，特别是最近十年来，取得了阶段性成果，从普洱茶发酵原料、发酵过程、陈化及储藏成品中分离鉴定出了曲霉属（如黑曲霉）、青霉属、根霉属、毛霉属、酵母属以及细菌等多种微生物菌种，并协同作用于普洱茶渥堆、后陈化的不同阶段。Microbes are groups of complicated and mysterious microorganisms, they work on the tea indirectly, or participate in tea’s bio-reactions directly, achieve its flavors and produce some unique medicine materials, like lovastatin. Since the 1980s, scientists started to research those microbes, which has gained big progress late 10 years. So far, they have found and identified the following microbes: Aspergillus(like Aspergillus niger group), Penicillium, Rhizopus, Mucor, Saccharomyces, and Bacterias. Those microbes work on pu-erh tea during the piling processing to storage separately.
传统普洱茶渥堆发酵需要5-10吨的晒青毛茶，这并非只是一个简单的量级关系。熟茶之所以有其独特的口感，得益于微生物的作用。而微生物都一个共性，就是“聚量感应”。微生物以茶叶为宿主，并以茶叶中的生化物质为营养原料，通过自身的呼吸作用和物质代谢释出放热量创造适宜的生长温度，并以茶叶、以及空气中的水分为介质和参与物，不断地繁殖。当同一类微生物，比如主导渥堆发酵的黑曲霉达到足够的量级时，它们通过释放一种生物信号，协同进行反应。In traditional, there needs 5 to 10 tons of sun-dried mao cha for each pile, because all the microbes have a mutual character -- Quorum Sensing. By living on the wet tea leaves, those microorganisms grow fast, meanwhile cause heat, and gather rapidly till large enough to react simultaneously by releasing a special bio-signal.
（节选自《普洱茶品鉴与进阶》中文版）大自然的神奇之处在于，就算看起来微不足道的微生物，实则有其自己的有序世界，以及交流语言。普洱茶中庞大的微生物具有神奇的感知能力，不仅能计算出同类的数量，还能区别不同微生物的种类。它们通过一种“五碳子结构”的催化剂进行交流，从而进一步有序的此起彼伏的生长、繁殖、代谢。每一种微生物都有其较长的代谢周期，而普洱茶的渥堆发酵还属于原始的发酵工程，我们仍然需要不谢的努力去探索普洱茶发酵的未知世界。因此，传统的渥堆需要45-70天才能完成，急于求成缩短渥堆周期，如揠苗助长，影响茶叶的口感。Nature is amazing that each creature in the universe obeys its natural order, even microbes have their own well-organized world and own languages. They can not only calculate the quantity but also recognize different species by communicating with each other through a special 5-C catalyst, further, to cause series of reactions. Piling fermentation is still a primitive fermenting mode, there are lots of researches to discover the unknown microbes’ world. As a result, there take 45 to 70 days to accomplish the whole piling procedure.
那么，这群庞大的微生物来自于哪里呢？茶树生长的自然环境、加工、储藏环境以及人为接种都是微生物的来源。对于渥堆发酵来说，在避免二次污染的同时，如何培养并养护有益微生物菌群是非常重要的。放大到整个普洱茶的种植、生产、加工和仓储环境，此法同样重要，这也是原产地窖藏的要生物学意义。Where do those microbes come from? They exist everywhere when planting, processing, and storage, and artificial-growing technologies are still available. Therefore, it is very important to grow and maintain those microbes in the piling environment, meanwhile, prevent them from contamination, so do the whole pu-erh procedures. Actually, it indicates the biochemical meanings of original cellaring.
