Kombucha

Trade grades separate on whether the product is live or stabilised. Raw unpasteurised kombucha retains viable organisms and continues to acidify in the pack, so it moves under refrigeration. Pasteurised or sterile filtered kombucha is microbiologically stable at ambient temperature and is the form used as a compounding ingredient.

Concentrates are offered at two to ten fold, standardised on titratable acidity rather than on solids. Spray dried powders are standardised on total acid and carrier ratio, and are available both as a plain fermentate powder and as an organic certified version made from organic cane sugar and organic tea. Ethanol reduced grades produced by vacuum stripping are traded where the finished product must stay below the non-alcoholic threshold.

In the United States kombucha is regulated as a conventional food or beverage rather than as an additive, and the tea, sugar and fermentation organisms used are all ordinary food materials. The controlling regulatory question is alcohol content, since a beverage at or above 0.5 percent alcohol by volume is treated as an alcoholic beverage and falls under the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau rather than FDA, which is why commercial production monitors and often strips residual ethanol.

In the European Union kombucha is a traditional fermented food with a history of consumption predating May 1997, so it is not treated as a novel food, and it carries no E number because it is an ingredient rather than an additive. General food hygiene and food information rules apply, along with the same alcohol labelling threshold logic used for other low alcohol drinks. Codex has no commodity standard specific to kombucha.