Naturally fermented suan-cai was studied in these experiments;
though traditional fermentation provides good nutritional value and
taste, it is not standardized and so results are not always reliable. Future
studies should nowtake advantage ofmodern technology to determine
the role of each microbial species, select an optimal mix and then optimise
the fermentation process for that microbial blend. In our study we
took the first step in identifying the microbial community in natural
fermented suan-cai and now aim to characterize their function under
the same fermentation conditions. By adding different isolates, individually
or as mixtures, as microbial inoculants before suan-cai fermentation,
would allow us to determine their relative influences on the
ultimate flavour of suan-cai.