Kombucha Benefits: Is It Healthy? (Plus Vegan Guide)

In this article

What is kombucha made of?

Kombucha is a fermented tea drink with a tangy, slightly fizzy character. The base is simple: green or black tea, sugar, water, and a SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast).

Kombucha Benefits: Is It Healthy? (Plus Vegan Guide)

During fermentation, the bacteria and yeast break down sugar into organic acids, carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of alcohol. This creates kombucha’s distinctive sour taste and effervescence.¹

Most commercial kombucha also contains added fruit flavors or juice for variety.

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Health benefits of kombucha

Kombucha has been marketed as a health elixir, but what does science actually say?

What we know:

Kombucha contains antioxidants from tea, particularly polyphenols. Research shows fermentation can actually enhance antioxidant activity, with red and green tea kombuchas showing the highest potential.²
Animal studies suggest kombucha may help with blood sugar regulation and oxidative stress in diabetic models — performing better than unfermented black tea.³
It contains organic acids, B vitamins, and small amounts of beneficial bacteria.

What’s overhyped:

A systematic review found very limited human clinical trials on kombucha specifically.⁴ Most health claims come from test-tube or animal studies, which don’t always translate to humans.

The bottom line: Kombucha is likely beneficial as part of a healthy diet, primarily due to the tea polyphenols and probiotic potential. But it’s not a miracle cure.

Is kombucha vegan?

Kombucha is suitable for vegans and vegetarians. It is made from tea, yeast, bacteria, and sugar. Occasionally, honey may be added, and some brands may use sugar that is filtered through bone char.

Why kombucha may not always be vegan

Here are the reasons why kombucha may not always be vegan:

1. Honey

Most kombucha that you can buy is flavored. The flavors can include anything such as fruits, herbs, spices, and botanicals. If the manufacturer uses honey as a sweetener, the kombucha will not be suitable for vegans.

Almost all vegans choose to exclude honey from their diets because honey production exploits bees. Most commercially produced kombucha doesn’t include honey in the ingredients, but it’s something you’ll want to look out for.

2. White sugar

Not all sugar is vegan. This is because white sugar is sometimes filtered through bone char to achieve a white color. The bone char typically comes from cows that were slaughtered for meat.

The good news is that organic sugar is always vegan, as is brown sugar.

3. Waxed fruit

Sometimes, fruits such as oranges, lemons, limes, apples, and mangoes aren’t strictly vegan. This is because they may be coated in wax to maintain their appearance and freshness. This wax coating may include beeswax (from bees) or shellac (the secretions of the female lac insect).

The use of waxed fruit is the reason why some fruit juice drinks cannot be labeled as vegan.

In practice, knowing which fruits have been waxed is almost impossible. For practical reasons, most vegans choose to eat fruit that may have been coated in animal-derived wax.

4. Live bacteria

Kombucha is brewed using something called a “SCOBY.” This acronym stands for ‘Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast.’ It looks like a thick, beige, rubbery mass and it hosts the yeast and bacteria that aid the fermentation process.

The bacteria and yeast in the “SCOBY” break down sugar and convert it into alcohol, carbon dioxide, and acids. This produces the tangy taste and fizz that you get with kombucha.

So, what about the live bacteria in kombucha? Do vegans care about bacteria?

Bacteria are not animals, nor are they able to feel pain. As yeast and bacteria are too simple to have the biological apparatus for self-awareness, vegans do not need to avoid harming them.

The average human body contains around 39 trillion bacteria. That’s more than the 30 trillion human cells that we each have! Every time you take a shower, millions of bacteria are destroyed. Taking antibiotics will wipe out large numbers of good and bad bacteria, yet this is acceptable to vegans.

The presence of bacteria and yeast is not a reason for vegans to avoid kombucha.

Frequently asked questions about kombucha

Here are the most commonly asked questions about kombucha:

Is kombucha a plant?

Kombucha is not a plant. It’s a fermented drink made with tea, sugar, yeast, and bacteria. Although it is sometimes referred to as mushroom tea, kombucha is not a mushroom.

Does kombucha contain alcohol?

Kombucha is made by fermentation which creates a small amount of alcohol. Most kombucha has less than 0.5% ABV, although some hard kombucha contains 4 to 8% ABV.

Can vegans eat fermented foods?

Vegans can enjoy an array of fermented foods including tempeh, kimchi, sauerkraut, miso, wine, beer, and kombucha tea. Fermentation using microorganisms like yeast and bacteria is acceptable to vegans.

Can vegans eat bacteria?

All food contains bacteria and vegans have no problem with eating bacteria. Vegans do not eat foods of animal origin and bacteria are not classed as animals.

The bottom line

Kombucha is a fermented tea with legitimate antioxidant benefits from tea polyphenols, though its probiotic content varies widely between products. Most health claims remain unproven in human studies.

As for the vegan question: traditional kombucha is vegan. Watch out for:

37 Foods and Ingredients to Avoid on a Vegan Diet

Honey as a sweetener
Sugar filtered through bone char (choose organic to be safe)
Waxed fruit ingredients (difficult to verify)

The easiest approach is to choose a certified vegan brand or make your own at home.

Chakravorty S, Bhattacharya S, Chatzinotas A, et al. Kombucha tea fermentation: Microbial and biochemical dynamics. International Journal of Food Microbiology. 2016;220:63-72. PubMed ↩︎
Jakubczyk K, Kaldunska J, Kochman J, Janda K. Chemical Profile and Antioxidant Activity of the Kombucha Beverage Derived from White, Green, Black and Red Tea. Antioxidants. 2020;9(5):447. PubMed ↩︎
Bhattacharya S, Gachhui R, Sil PC. Effect of Kombucha, a fermented black tea in attenuating oxidative stress mediated tissue damage in alloxan induced diabetic rats. Food and Chemical Toxicology. 2013;60:328-340. PubMed ↩︎
Kapp JM, Sumner W. Kombucha: a systematic review of the empirical evidence of human health benefit. Annals of Epidemiology. 2019;30:66-70. PubMed ↩︎