Research Advances on Microbial Diversity and Its Analytical Methods of Kombucha

Kombucha is a functional beverage rich in probiotics and active ingredients fermented by sugared tea using a symbiotic consortium of acetic acid bacteria,yeasts and lactic acid bacteria. Owing to its numerous claims on therapeutic effects,Kombucha is recently gained popularity and grown exponentially in global market in recent years. However,in China,Kombucha was still mainly prepared at home. Recently,the analytic methods for Kombucha probiotic community is gradually evolved from the individual strain by means of culture-depending method to the overall analysis of microflora using culture-independing method on the basis of molecular biological methods. The research methods on microbial community of Kombucha were summarized,in order to provide theoretical and methodological guidance for the basic scientific research and industrialization of Kombucha in China.