6 Of The Unhealthiest Store-Bought Kombucha Brands To Avoid

Kombucha has seemingly popped up all over the place in the past decade. However, it actually has a long history of being touted as a gut-friendly, fermented tea beverage with an abundance of health benefits from probiotics. While we do know that probiotics provide various health benefits, including reduced inflammation, gut health, and increased energy, more research is needed to make definitive conclusions as to the effects of kombucha on overall health. The drink's creation process most often involves black, white, or green tea mixed with a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY). The SCOBY ferments the sugar and results in a carbonated sour and sweet beverage with ample probiotic content. However, there is a fair amount of diversity in ingredients and additives in commercial kombucha brands and flavors, making clear that not every product on the shelves is quite as healthy as it claims to be.

The most obvious example of an unnecessary additive in kombucha that makes it unhealthy is sugar. The American Health Association (AHA) recommends that adult males consume no more than 36 grams of sugar per day and that women consume no more than 25 grams per day. Additionally, the FDA notes that added sugars should make up less than 10% of the average person's daily calorie intake. With that in mind, we examined the sugar content of top kombucha brands to discover which are the unhealthiest options on the shelves.

In an interview on The Beyond Capital podcast, Daina Trout, co-founder of Health-Ade, describes kombucha as "a healthy version of a soda that just sort of makes you feel good." While Health-Ade kombucha products certainly have less sugar content than a Coca-Cola, there are some flavors that rank high in the added sugar category in comparison to other commercial kombucha offerings.

With 19 grams of sugar, including 14 added sugars in each bottle, Pink Lady Apple proves to be Health-Ade's unhealthiest flavor option. The added sugars in the Pink Lady Apple flavor come from the apple juice concentrate in the beverage. Juice concentrates are often less healthy than raw fruit juice because many companies include added sugars in the concentrate to increase the flavor intensity. Additionally, the concentration process removes some essential nutrients, such as vitamins and fiber, while adding more sugar, resulting in the higher added sugar content in this particular flavor.

Cherry-limeade kombucha might be eye-catching on the shelf for anyone who is looking for a healthier alternative to cherry sodas. While Brew Dr.'s Kombucha certainly has less sugar than most sodas, it is not as healthy as it is advertised. This flavor has 14 grams of total sugars including 11 grams of added sugars. The added sugars are largely from the dark sweet cherry juice concentrate, which also gives it the fruity and tart flavor that the company advertises. Cherries are one of the fruits with the highest sugar content and juice concentrate removes some of the fiber benefits from the 100% raw cherry juice. 

Additionally, the brand faced a class action lawsuit in 2019 for misrepresenting the number of probiotics in its beverage. While Brew Dr. claimed to have billions of live probiotics in its product, there appeared to be only 50,000 CFUs (colony forming units or the unit by which probiotics are measured) in each bottle. This is not nearly enough to meet the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics standard, which established in 2014 that a product must have at least 1 billion CFUs to have the associated health benefits.

Founder George Thomas (GT) Dave started fermenting his own kombucha when he was 15 and he first brought kombucha to grocery store shelves in the 1990s. He then grew GT's Kombucha (now called GT's Living Foods) to be a leading brand nationwide by marketing his products through celebrities. When celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Naomi Campbell, and Reese Witherspoon were spotted drinking the "health" beverage, which helped the brand grow in popularity, some of GT's flavors are actually pretty high in sugar.

While the Pomelo Pink Lemonade does boast 9 billion living probiotics, this particular flavor has 14 grams of sugar, which is the sugar equivalent of 3 Snickers Minis chocolates. In addition to the high sugar content, GT's Kombucha came under fire for replacing some organic ingredients in its SYNERGY kombucha to cut costs. A short-term study in Food concludes that organic diets are linked to more health benefits, though further research on the long-term effects of organic diets is needed. So removing the organic ingredients that attract some consumers resulted in some of GT's products being removed from health stores.

Brew Dr.'s Pineapple Paradise kombucha is advertised as a fruity, tart, and sweet health beverage but the cost of all that flavor is high sugar content. With 15 grams of sugar including 11 grams of added sugars, this flavor is one of the brand's higher sugar-content beverages. Some of the sugars come from the combination of pineapple juice and passion fruit juice, but the ingredient of guava puree is likely contributing heavily to the sugar count in the drink as well.

Fruit puree is created by blending down the fruit and this process replaces some of the naturally occurring sugars in the fruit with free sugars. The World Cancer Research Fund explains that we should reduce the amount of free sugars in our diets because they can contribute to health issues. Additionally, while this process limits the amount of pulp and is a fairly common practice for many commercial juice products, it also removes fibers and their health benefits from the fruit.

Buchi experiments with various probiotic beverages including sodas, energy drinks, and other soda alternatives, and some of these products are low in sugar. However, the brand's popular Sovereign flavor is not quite so healthy. The Sovereign flavor of Buchi kombucha boasts all organic ingredients and the company claims that the active cultures in the kombucha are so active that you can use them as a starter to create your own home brew. But as we've learned, organic does not mean low sugar. The Sovereign flavor has 15 grams of sugar, all of which are added sugars. Meaning, one bottle of this beverage makes up over 50% of the recommended daily sugar intake for women and nearly 50% for men.

This peach ginger concoction has ginger juice, peach juice from concentrate, mango puree, and lemon puree. While ginger does have its own health benefits, some of these other sugary additives make Sovereign an unhealthy choice compared to other commercial kombucha brands and flavors. Tropical fruits typically have high natural sugar content and mangoes tend to have the highest sugar content of all the tropical fruits. Since the ingredient is puree, the naturally occurring fibers that typically help regulate blood sugar levels are also removed.

GT Kombucha has long been a leader in the commercial kombucha market and according to Statistica, it was the highest-grossing kombucha brand on the market at the end of 2023. GT Dave is recognized as the pioneer who first brought kombucha to American retailers and he fostered that business into what is now a nearly billion-dollar company. Like many other brands, GT claims its product is a beverage for gut health, immune support, cellular health, and brain function, but to sell that much kombucha and please the masses it has to be tasty, which is where the sugars come into play.

GT Kombucha's Synergy Trilogy flavor is something of a mystery at first. Without any indication of flavoring on the bottle, it can be hard to discern what this kombucha actually tastes like. Trilogy is advertised as having a tart raspberry flavor with notes of lemon and ginger. The ingredients are limited but the 12 grams of sugar in each bottle are derived from the raspberry juice and kiwi juice.