From Raw Materials to Distinct Flavors: Unraveling the Microbial Fermentation of Guizhou Sour Soup

The modernization of traditional fermented foods is often constrained by a limited understanding of the complex microbial ecosystems underpinning their quality. Guizhou sour soup, a representative Chinese fermented food, exemplifies this challenge. This review systematically reveals that its distinctive characteristics stem from a raw material-driven fermentation ecology. Red sour soup and rice sour soup cultivate specific functional microbial communities centered on lactic acid bacteria and yeasts, exhibiting clear dynamic succession patterns. This gives rise to markedly different flavor profiles-the former dominated by alcohols and terpenes, the latter characterized by esters and organic acids-with microbial metabolism serving as the primary mechanism for flavor formation. Concurrently, sour soup is rich in bioactive compounds, demonstrating health potential including antioxidant effects and regulation of the gut microbiota. However, current research lacks systematic analysis of microbial interaction networks, specific flavor metabolic pathways, and structure-activity relationships of bioactive components, which severely hinders process standardization and industrial upgrading. To address this, this paper establishes an integrated associative framework linking "raw materials-process-microbes-quality." This not only provides a critical theoretical basis for standardized production and targeted flavor regulation of Guizhou sour soup but also offers a scientific framework for modernizing similar traditional fermented foods worldwide.