Nathan Hague

Can Muslims Drink Kombucha?

OK, so let’s go through all the essential facts and evidence about kombucha, so you can more effectively gauge if kombucha is halal or not. I believe that if you’re asking “is kombucha halal”, then you’re likely a Muslim yourself and obviously know it’s forbidden to consume any food of beverage that may contain haram ingredients such as alcohol. But let me absolutely blow your mind too, as you discover a load of things you probably didn’t know already!

The confusion around kombucha starts for many Muslims, with kombucha being a drink that can contain alcohol, but there’s a lot of differences in kombucha that are believed to move it from a haram product, to a halal product.

Let’s get started, and I hope you enjoy the article! Remember: Blow. Your. Mind!

To start with, let’s break this article down into four different sections, so I can focus on the facts for that section only. It makes far easier reading, than me trying to talk about multiple things at once.

The four sections are:

1. What is Kombucha?
2. How is Kombucha Made?
3. How Much Alcohol is in Kombucha?
4. Does The Alcohol in Kombucha Tea Make It Haram / Not Halal?

1. What is Kombucha ?

Kombucha is a naturally-fermented tea drink that is thousands of years old. We’re not quite sure if it originated from China, Russia or Japan, but the way it’s made today is exactly the same as it made back in its origins. Kombucha has many documented health effects, with scientists and medical researchers continually providing more research and evidence on those claims. Kombucha has been proved to help with weight loss, and been linked with a decrease in certain types of cancer.^(1)(2)(3) We’ll get to those claims later in the article, but I want you to know this isn’t an drink that is like a typical haram alcoholic drink like a traditional beer (which is another more common type of naturally-fermented drink)

Kombucha is a slightly sweet, slightly sour drink that can also be either sparkling or flat. It’s a very flexible drink that can be turned into vastly different drink experiences depending mostly on the brewing method and ingredients used after its first fermentation process – something we’ll also talk about later in the article!

With its popularity exploding all over the world, I wanted to dig deeper into knowing myself, is kombucha halal – after all, we’re a kombucha Manufacturer with a Thailand kombucha factory: We most certainly want to know 100% for certain if it’s safe for Muslims to consume!

2. How Is Kombucha Made?

There are unlimited recipes for how to make kombucha on the Internet. Most of the kombucha recipes are for home-made kombucha, and therefore the most common basic ingredients are a combination of:

Basic Kombucha Ingredients

• Water
• Sugar
• Black or green tea
• A culture (or a “SCOBY” which is a Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria And Yeast)

Common Kombucha Flavouring Ingredients

• Chopped Fruit
• Fruit Juice
• Honey
• Herbs or Spices

Straight away, we can see by looking at the ingredients list, there is nothing that is haram or our of the ordinary. All good so far 🙂

However, this is also where the “is kombucha halal” questions starts!

Making a naturally-fermented kombucha, is going to involve taking the basic kombucha ingredients of tea, water, sugar and a SCOBY, and then leaving these ingredients to ferment for between 7 – 30 days.

But it’s more complicated to just simply say “kombucha is haram” at this point.

The fermentation begins and continues for as long as there’s a sugar source for the yeast in the SCOBY to feed on. Now as part of that fermentation process, we now know that yes, alcohol is produced in the early stages, but that is where the bacteria in the SCOBY culture take over from the yeast.

Let me explain first by talking quickly about probiotics in kombucha.

Kombucha is associated with being a healthy probiotic drink. These probiotics are produced in the natural kombucha fermentation process. Probiotics provide your gut with healthy bacteria. These bacteria can improve many aspects of health, including digestion, inflammation and even weight loss.

Now the reason I’m talking about probiotics, is that they come from the beneficial bacteria in the kombucha fermentation process. (The “B” in the word “SCOBY”)

Essentially, these beneficial probiotics come from the process by which the bacteria in the SCOBY consume the alcohol produced by the yeast. The bacteria “eat” the produced alcohol from the yeast, and it’s their byproducts from this process that are the probiotics I am talking about.

Also worth noting, is the sourness of kombucha comes from these same bacteria’s consumption of the alcohol in kombucha, to produce acetic acids – which are also found in vinegar.

Another benefit to the large amount of the beneficial lactobacillus bacteria that’s in the kombucha, is that they give the gut-friendly protection that kombucha is famous for.

Several other healthy acidic compounds such as gluconic and glucuronic acids are also produced. If we focus back on the probiotics though – there’s only a measurable amount of probiotics at the early stages of fermentation, which then the levels go down as the fermentation continues. So if you take kombucha that’s been fermented for 3 weeks, then the probiotic level is actually very low.

Why choose 3 weeks in my example?

Well, it’s all down to alcohol levels. You cannot have kombucha without a trace amount of alcohol as when you give yeast a sugar source, their byproduct is alcohol. You can brew the kombucha for longer, but then your probiotic levels go down.

It’s a fine balancing act, and now we get into another reason why many Muslims ask whether or not “is kombucha halal?”

3. How Much Alcohol is in Kombucha?

Enjoying the article? I hope so, because now we’re on the REALLY interesting part, and it’s THIS section that you’re going to be amazed at some of the facts I cover for you.

First up though?

All Kombuchas Are Not Created Equal!

Now for the purposes of this article, let’s divide up kombucha into three separate categories, as each one will surprisingly have different characteristics – we’ll talk about these later.

1. Store brought / commercial Kombucha. This is kombucha such as our KombuchaWOW brand booch, or any of the brands you can go into a 7-11, or buy from Villa Market or other grocery chains in Thailand. By Thailand Law, ALL kombucha must be under 0.5% ABV alcohol levels to be classed as a soft drink.
2. Home brewed kombucha. Yup, the one you can make in your own kitchen, or where you buy from a Facebook group, for example.
3. Hard kombucha. This is alcoholic kombucha, and can range from 1 – 7% ABV which is a very strong beer’s worth of alcohol. SOOoo.. obviously this has alcohol and so I won’t cover it in this article.

This 0.5% beverage limit is pretty standard across the world – the US, UK and Australia all require the same 0.5% level too.

So given the fact that it’s almost impossible to control the naturally-occurring alcohol levels in home-brewed kombucha, I will say that straight off the bat that:

Home brewed kombucha is definitely NOT halal.

For the rest of this article then, I will focus on commercial Thailand kombucha brands such our own KombuchaWOW brand that adhere to actually being LESS than this 0.5% ABV level as set by the Thai Government.

Commercial and store-brought non-alcoholic kombucha is likely to be halal.

OK, to give you some perspective though on how much 0.5% ABV actually is, let me give you some examples of common other foods apart from Kombucha, that have naturally-occurring levels of alcohol in them. You’re going to be pretty surprised by this, I’m sure!

Everyday Halal Food Containing Alcohol

• Burger rolls – up to 1.28g per 100g (1.28% ABV – over 400% MORE than the 0.3% ABV of KombuchaWOW!)
• Banana (very ripe with dark bits) – up to 0.4g per 100g (0.4% ABV) – 33% MORE than the 0.3% ABV of KombuchaWOW!)

Drinks That Contain Alcohol

• Dairy kefir – up to 0.5g per litre (0.5% ABV – 66% MORE than the 0.3% ABV of KombuchaWOW)
• Water kefir – up to 1.14g per litre (1.14% ABV – 380% MORE than the 0.3% ABV of KombuchaWOW)
• Orange juice – up to 0.73g per litre (0.73% ABV – over 240% MORE than the 0.3% ABV of KombuchaWOW)

Sauces And Condiments That Contain Alcohol

• Vinegar – around 0.3% to 0.4% ABV – roughly the same as a bottle of KombuchaWOW
• Kikkoman soy sauces – 1.5% – 2% ABV – this is up to 650% MORE alcohol content than the 0.3% of KombuchaWOW. Mindblowing, right?!)

I have a better article on how much alcohol is in kombucha, with way more examples and in-depth information here (10 minute read)

But yes – when you see common foods and drinks like the ones above that contain amounts of alcohol that are HIGHER than the Thailand Law-mandated 0.5% ABV, you might be surprised and more than a little shocked, right?

Want to be even more shocked?

Our Body Produces Alcohol Naturally as Long as We Live!

Whooah! But yes: Our body produces alcohol naturally! The religious teachings and fatwas make no difference when biology is involved, I’m afraid: We still produce it.

It done so throughout our lives, and is called “endogenous ethanol production“. It occurs 24 hours a day, seven days per week and is a result of our gut flora and fauna and how healthy they are. Diet seems to play a key role, along with if we’re taking antibiotics or not. There’s a proper scientific paper on this here^(PDF), although i will warn you that it’s very heavy reading and 60+ pages!

Indeed, some medical researchers believe our own bodies can make up to about 4 grams (0.4% ABV) of ethanol (alcohol) per day. But that’s still just under commercial kombucha’s legally-mandated limit of 0.5% ABV, and OVER brands such as KombuchaWOW that have lab-tested alcohol results of just 0.3% ABV!

I have NOT personally-seen that evidence of 4g of ethanol, and I always remain sceptical of claims on other websites – even Wikipedia – but the published scientific paper I mentioned earlier *IS* suggesting that endogenous ethanol production is happening in your body right now, so we can trust that.

4. Does The Alcohol in Kombucha Tea Make It Haram / Not Halal?

Similar to commercial vanilla extracts, kombucha contains tiny traces of alcohol. The general consensus among ahadith, state that consuming foods containing very low amounts of alcohol (especially when produced as a by-product of fermentation) that does not lead to intoxication is not haram (source).

Here are some Ahadith to support the above statement.

Everything that is called water is pure and a means of purification, whether some impurity has fallen into it or not, if it is known that it has dissolved into it and disappeared. As for that in which traces of impurity are apparent, it is haraam to use it, because it comes under the heading of using something haraam.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah

Here’s another fatwa by Majmoo‘ al-Fataawa

Allah has forbidden impure things (khabaa’ith), namely blood, dead meat, pork and so on. If any of these things fall into water etc and disappear, so there is no blood, dead meat or pork left at all, similar to the case where alcohol disappears in a liquid, then the one who drinks it is not drinking khamr.

Majmoo‘ al-Fataawa

So the way I think we interpret this, is that since the alcohol is a by-product during the fermentation process, the alcohol levels are too little to cause any intoxication.

No intoxication means it is halal

Final Thoughts

I can confidently say that home-brewed kombucha is NOT halal. Its alcohol levels cannot be controlled and cannot be reliably measured.

I can confidently say where a commercial kombucha is brought from a store AND states clearly on the label that it’s under the 0.5% ABV level, then its alcohol levels are too low for anyone to get intoxicated from, so would NOT be haram, and therefore MUST BE halal (and permissible to consume).

I would most definitely welcome any further discussion around this, and firmly encourage you to comment on this article or message me on our KombuchaWOW socials! We’re on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok and we read EVERY SINGLE comment from you.

As always too, if you want to take a picture of you with our products – please tag them with #kombuchawow so we can see them. You never know – if we see yours and we like it, you might get something free in your inbox!

Peace out, and booch on now you know the answer to “is kombucha halal or not!”

Nate