Fructans supply most of the fermentable sugars stored in blue agave for tequila production.
Blue agave stores carbohydrates mainly as fructans, chains made largely from fructose units. During cooking, heat and acidity break these complex carbohydrates into simpler sugars. Those sugars can then be extracted from the cooked agave and converted into alcohol by yeast during fermentation.
This chemistry explains why raw agave is not simply squeezed like grapes or sugar cane. The plant’s stored carbohydrates must first be made accessible. Traditional ovens and modern autoclaves both serve this crucial cooking step, although they differ in speed and process control.
Fructans are sometimes loosely described as “agave starch,” but that wording is chemically imprecise. Starch is built from glucose, whereas agave’s principal storage carbohydrates are fructans. Inulin is one type of fructan, but the wider family name is the more accurate answer for blue agave’s stored carbohydrate reserve.