2024考研英语同源外刊1月:保持进取之心
People drink more than 2bn cups of it each and every day. Even so, it can pull surprises, as Ali Inayat Mallano and Jeffrey Bennetzen of Anhui Agricultural University, in China, have just shown.
茶在全世界都很常见。人们每天喝超过20亿杯的咖啡。即便如此，它也可能带来惊喜，正如中国安徽农业大学的阿里•因纳亚特•马拉诺(ali inayat mallano)和杰弗里•本内岑(jeffrey bennetzen)刚刚展示的那样。
Tea producers long assumed that the flavours of the most widely drunk varieties of this beverage, so-called black teas like Darjeeling, Assam and English Breakfast, were a consequence of some of the chemicals in tea leaves being oxidised while those leaves were being dried. Dr Mallano and Dr Bennetzen suspected, however, that, like the flavours of more expensive and rarefied “dark” teas such as kombucha, Pu-erh and anhua, black-tea flavours are at least partly a product of fermentation. This would mean they could be manipulated by tweaking the mix of micro-organisms doing the fermenting.
长期以来，茶叶生产商一直认为，这种饮料中最常见的口味，即所谓的红茶，如大吉岭茶(darjeeling)、阿萨姆茶(assam)和英式早餐茶(english breakfast) ，是茶叶在干燥过程中被氧化的结果。然而，mallano 博士和 bennetzen 博士怀疑，就像更昂贵、更稀有的“黑”茶(如康普茶、普洱茶和安化茶)的味道一样，红茶的味道至少部分是发酵的产物。这意味着它们可以通过调整微生物的组合，来进行发酵。
To test their hypothesis they obtained some leaves from the Dongzhi tea plantation in Anhui province. As they explain in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, they then sampled the microbes thereon before sterilising half of the leaves in mild bleach for five minutes. After that (having washed the sterilised leaves thoroughly, to get rid of the bleach) they processed both the sterilised and the unsterilised leaves in the normal way. In other words, they withered, rolled, oxidised and dried them. They then tested them all for microbes once more. They also tested the result of all this treatment in a more time-honoured manner, by brewing numerous cups of tea.
为了验证他们的假设，他们从安徽省的东至茶园采集了一些茶叶。正如他们在《农业与食品化学》杂志上解释的那样，他们在用温和漂白剂消毒一半叶子5分钟之前，取了叶子上的微生物样本。然后(彻底清洗已消毒的叶子，以除去漂白剂) ，再以正常方法处理已消毒和未消毒的叶子。换句话说，它们枯萎，卷曲，氧化，干燥。然后他们再一次测试它们是否含有微生物。他们还用一种由来已久的方法测试了所有这些处理的结果，即冲泡许多杯茶。
If oxidation were the main cause of chemical change in black-tea leaves as they were processed, the sterilisation would have made little difference either to the chemistry or the taste of the final product. But this was not the case. Black tea brewed from unsterilised leaves had, as per normal, lots of catechins and theanine, both of which made it flavourful. Tea made from sterilised leaves did not, and its taste suffered as a consequence. Black tea, then, seems to get its flavour in the same way that dark tea does.
如果氧化是红茶在加工过程中发生化学变化的主要原因，那么消毒过程对最终产品的化学成分和口感几乎没有影响。但事实并非如此。一般来说，用未经消毒的茶叶冲泡的红茶中含有大量儿茶素和茶氨酸，这两种物质都使茶味道浓郁。而用经过消毒的茶叶制成的茶叶则没有这种功效，因此它的味道也受到了影响。那么，红茶的味道就像黑茶一样。
The next job, which Dr Mallano and Dr Bennetzen are now engaged in, is to identify the bugs involved. Once they have done that, tweaking the microbial mixture to produce novel flavours should become possible. And that is good news for tea snobs everywhere.
Mallano
博士和 bennetzen 博士正在进行的下一项工作，就是鉴定其中涉及的细菌。一旦他们这样做了，调整微生物混合物，产生新的味道应该成为可能。这对任何地方的茶叶势利小人来说都是好消息。
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