## 3 Results and Discussion
### Diversity of Microbial Communities during SSF of PFPT  
The average initial bacterial and fungal cell numbers in the raw material were approximately 5.7 \(\times\) 10\({}^{2}\) and 1.3 \(\times\) 10\({}^{3}\) CFU/g, which increased to about 5.8 \(\times\) 10\({}^{7}\) and 3.2 \(\times\) 10\({}^{6}\) CFU/g at seven days of fermentation, and then increased to about 10\({}^{8}\) or 10\({}^{7}\) CFU/g during SSF (Table 2). Figure 1: The representative sensory evaluation of tea leaves collected on day 0 (**a**); 7 (**b**); 14 (**c**); 21 (**d**); 28 (**e**) and 35 (**f**) during solid-state fermentation (SSF) of Post-fermented Pu-erh tea (Pu-erh Shucha, PFPT). The sensory evaluation was developed according the Chinese standard (GB/T 23776-2009) as follows: 3 g of dried tea leaves were infused in 150 mL boiled water for 5 min; the pre-and post-infusion tea leaves and the tea liquid after infusion are shown. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Sample** & **Cell Number** & \begin{tabular}{c} **No. of** \\ **Reads** \\ \end{tabular} & \
\begin{tabular}{c} **No. of** \\ **OTUs** \\ \end{tabular} &
\begin{tabular}{c} **Coverage** \\ **(\%)** \\ \end{tabular} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**No. of Taxonomic Groups Identified**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Richness Estimators**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**DIVERSITY Indices**} \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{10}{c}{**Means of CFU/g**} \\ \hline D-0-1 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(5.7\times 10^{2}\)} & 5409 & 1338 & 81.94 & 7 & 44 & 80 & 8429 & 4495 & 4.84 & 0.07 \\ D-0-2 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(5.7\times 10^{2}\)} & 5529 & 1482 & 78.60 & 8 & 55 & 106 & 9935 & 5343 & 5.30 & 0.04 \\ \hline D-7-1 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(5.8\times 10^{2}\)} & 4637 & 1479 & 75.57 & 14 & 90 & 158 & 100.208 & 5487 & 5.52 & 0.03 \\ D-7-2 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(5.8\times 10^{2}\)} & 691 & 1988 & 77.18 & 10 & 84 & 111 & 15.638 & 7076 & 5.50 & 0.04 \\ \hline D-14-1 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(1.7\times 10^{6}\)} & 4539 & 1099 & 84.27 & 7 & 60 & 95 & 487 & 2999 & 5.43 & 0.03 \\ D-14-2 & & 5393 & 2207 & 69.63 & 12 & 86 & 152 & 12,646 & 6382 & 6.91 & 0.01 \\ \hline D-21-1 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(1.2\times 10^{6}\)} & 3472 & 1302 & 73.30 & 5 & 38 & 63 & 7453 & 3622 & 5.90 & 0.03 \\ D-21-2 & & 5811 & 2071 & 75.17 & 10 & 59 & 92 & 10,983 & 6042 & 6.57 & 0.01 \\ \hline D-28-1 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(2.0\times 10^{6}\)} & 3175 & 1261 & 71.28 & 6 & 53 & 76 & 7165 & 3621 & 5.97 & 0.02 \\ D-28-2 & & 3649 & 1178 & 76.38 & 7 & 57 & 85 & 6782 & 3989 & 5.34 & 0.04 \\ \hline D-35-1 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(8.3\times 10^{7}\)} & 3119 & 1138 & 73.45 & 5 & 51 & 81 & 5953 & 3319 & 5.66 & 0.02 \\ D-35-2 & & 3137 & 948 & 78.39 & 7 & 52 & 77 & 5157 & 2687 & 4.96 & 0.06 \\ \hline \multicolumn{10}{c}{**Fungli**} \\ \hline D-0-1 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(1.3\times 10^{3}\)} & 2189 & 162 & 96.62 & 5 & 41 & 58 & 330 & 258 & 2.6 & 0.26 \\ D-0-2 & & 1395 & 92 & 97.56 & 5 & 27 & 36 & 127 & 127 & 2.27 & 0.31 \\ \hline D-7-1 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(3.2\times 10^{6}\)} & 6305 & 32 & 99.71 & 3 & 3 & 4 & 128 & 63 & 0.4 & 0.84 \\ D-7-2 & & 5773 & 30 & 99.65 & 3 & 3 & 4 & 261 & 125 & 0.29 & 0.89 \\ \hline D-14-1 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(9.0\times 10^{7}\)} & 5718 & 41 & 99.56 & 2 & 3 & 3 & 184 & 116 & 0.98 & 0.48 \\ D-14-2 & & 5737 & 33 & 99.65 & 3 & 3 & 3 & 293 & 128 & 0.65 & 0.71 \\ \hline D-21-1 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(9.6\times 10^{7}\)} & 6211 & 41 & 99.60 & 2 & 2 & 3 & 270 & 101 & 0.50 & 0.79 \\ D-21-2 & & 5487 & 61 & 99.42 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 193 & 123 & 1.10 & 0.47 \\ \hline D-28-1 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(1.2\times 10^{6}\)} & 5314 & 66 & 99.36 & 2 & 11 & 13 & 180 & 136 & 0.66 & 0.78 \\ D-28-2 & & 5955 & 49 & 99.63 & 4 & 3 & 4 & 114 & 67 & 0.66 & 0.75 \\ \hline D-35-1 & \multirow{2}{*}{\(6.6\times 10^{7}\)} & 8050 & 99 & 99.30 & 2 & 6 & 9 & 325 & 195 & 0.78 & 0.75 \\ D-35-2 & & 5199 & 67 & 99.29 & 2 & 4 & 5 & 248 & 123 & 0.87 & 0.69 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Summary of pyrosequencing analyses of the bacterial _165 rRNA_ and fungal _185 rRNA_ genes.