Abstract:

A novel starter culture (daqu in Chinese) for Chinese liquor was made by the traditional procedure from wheat
added with tea flower and mother daqu. The manufacturing process was optimized by orthogonal array design. The surface
of tea-flower daqu made by culturing wheat with 2.0 g/100 g tea flower, 3.0 g/100 g mother daqu and 45 mL/100 g water
added for 25 d was covered with uniform white mycelia without splits and with a sharp cross-section. It also had obvious
burning circles and a strong daqu fragrance without off-odor. The tea-flower daqu had a moisture content of 12.5% and
an acidity of 0.9. The power of saccharification, liquefaction and fermentation were 816.5 mg/(g·h), 1.1 g/(g·h), and
57 g CO2/(100 g·48 h), respectively. The numbers of mold, yeast and bacteria in the daqu were 9.8×106, 9.4×105 and
5.7×106 CFU/g, respectively. Under the same fermentation conditions, the tea-flower daqu resulted in higher contents of
volatile aroma compounds in Chinese liquor than the traditional daqu.

Key words: tea flower, daqu, manufacturing process