Is probiotic tea an effective way to support your digestive health? Let’s walk through the different options on the market to choose the best one for you.
What Are Probiotics?
First, it might be helpful to define exactly what we’re talking about.
Probiotics definition: The World Health Organization defines probiotics as “live microorganisms which when consumed in adequate amounts as part of food confer a health benefit on the host.”
That means that a probiotic is a live bacteria that has the ability to improve your health.
Typically, probiotics are found in supplements or foods, but can now also be found in probiotic tea!
How Does Probiotic Tea Work?
Probiotic tea works by increasing the amount of beneficial bacteria (probiotics) in your digestive system.
You can think of the gut microbiome like a parking lot -- there’s only so many spaces available, and you want most of these spaces to be taken up by good bacteria.
When you consume probiotics (like in the form of probiotic tea), you add more good bacteria to your microbial parking lot.
By increasing counts of beneficial bacteria in your microbiome, you also help to push out bad bacteria (kick them out of their parking spaces).
Overall, drinking probiotic tea can help to rebalance your gut microbiome and improve your digestive health.
Natural Forms of Probiotic Tea
If you’re looking for a probiotic tea, you have two main options: natural or supplemental. Both are great and effective, so it’s a matter of preference.
A natural form of probiotic tea would be something like kombucha. Kombucha probiotic tea is naturally fermented, which allows the growth of good bacteria. When you drink this probiotic tea, you’re getting all those healthy bacteria into your gut microbiome.
Keep in mind that kombucha is a probiotic tea that can *only* be served cold -- not only will it not taste great hot (at least in our opinion!), but by heating kombucha you would also kill any beneficial probiotics.
So if you’re looking for a cold, sparkling probiotic tea then a natural form like kombucha could be a great option for you. If you’re looking for something that can be had hot, keep reading.
Supplement Forms of Probiotic Tea
When we talk about supplement forms of probiotic tea, we refer to teas that have individual probiotic strains added -- meaning, they are not probiotics that develop as a result of fermentation of the tea itself.
That said, supplement forms of probiotic tea can be extremely effective -- especially if you’re looking to use a specific probiotic strain. That’s because unlike probiotic tea like kombucha (where it’s not entirely clear what probiotic strains you’re consuming), a supplemental probiotic tea should detail the probiotic strain that it contains.
Probiotic strains are each unique in their health effects -- that means one strain can have a very different impact on your body than another. So choose wisely!
Probiotic Tea Bags
Probiotic tea bags are newer to the scene as advances have been made with heat-stable probiotic strains. That means that you can make a nice hot tea and still get the probiotic benefits!
Many probiotic strains are NOT heat-stable, which means that they’ll die when exposed to heat. Generally speaking, this isn’t a good thing (you want live bacteria), but there is some research that indicates that even “dead” or inactive probiotics can be beneficial as well.
If you’re looking for a probiotic tea bag option, you should be able to find them at your local grocery store or health food store with lots of different flavor options.
As always, make sure to check the probiotic strain in your tea bag to make sure it’s a strain that has been shown in research to be effective for the particular benefit you’re going for.
Probiotic Tea: Gut Power Drinks
We’re going to toot our own horn here a little bit, because we think our probiotic tea is some of the best you can find!
We use a heat-stable probiotic strain (which means you can make your tea hot OR cold and still get the benefits) that is geared towards supporting both digestive and immune health.
Remember that probiotic strain is important and different strains have different effects -- if you’re looking for digestive and immune benefits, Bacillus coagulans GBI 30-6086 (the strain we use in Gut Power probiotic tea) is a great choice.
In addition to probiotics, we also incorporate PREbiotics into our probiotic tea.
Prebiotics act as “food” for your healthy gut bacteria, so they can increase counts of beneficial bacteria and improve microbial balance in the gut. This is a great thing for your digestive health.
You can learn more about the prebiotic we use here (Sunfiber).
Prebiotics and probiotics together are referred to as a “synbiotic.” Synbiotics are great for supporting your digestive health.
Our probiotic tea is made with matcha green tea, which is a flavorful, delicious tea from Japan.
So if you’re looking for an easy, effective probiotic tea, we’d encourage you to try out Gut Power Matcha!
