关键词: 雪茄烟, 晾制, 晾制密度, 含氮化合物

Abstract: In order to fully grasp the changes of nitrogen metabolites during the drying process of cigar tobacco leaves, to formulate a reasonable modulation process, the cigar tobacco variety ‘Gu-5’ was used as material to study the effects of different air-drying densities (40, 60 and 80 pieces·rod^-1) on the changes of the main nitrogen compounds in cigar tobacco leaves. The results showed that, under different air-drying densities, the changing trends of various nitrogen-containing compounds in tobacco leaves were basically consistent. Among them, the change of total nitrogen content showed a “bimodal curve”, and the total nitrogen content was the lowest at the end of air-drying; soluble protein degradation mainly occurred during the wilting phase and the yellowing phase, and the accumulation of amino acids proceeded with protein degradation simultaneously, showing a "fast-slow-fast" variation trend; the total alkaloid content  decreased slightly; nitrate did not change much between before and after air-drying. Among different air-drying densities, total nitrogen, protein and alkaloids of tobacco leaves were degraded the fastest under the treatment of 40 pieces·rod^-1, and the three chemical components  all reached the lowest value at 25 d after air-drying; amino acids content was fully accumulated during air-drying process and eventually reached 7.61 mg·g^-1; its nitrate content was always the lowest during the whole air-drying process. Taken together, the drying density of 40 pieces·rod^-1 was more conducive to improving the quality and industrial availability of cigar tobacco leaves.

Key words: cigar, air-drying, drying density, nitrogen compounds