kombucha
/ˌkɑmˈbu.t͡ʃə/noun
kombucha is a noun meaning “A fermented, effervescent, and sweetened black tea of Mongolian origin” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled K-O-M-B-U-C-H-A and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 4 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of kombucha is kombuchas.
What does kombucha mean?
noun
- 1
A fermented, effervescent, and sweetened black tea of Mongolian origin.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce kombucha?
- US /ˌkɑmˈbu.t͡ʃə/
- US /ˌkɑmˈbu.ʃə/
Kombucha has 3 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-kombucha.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of kombucha
- kombuchas plural
- komboucha
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is kombucha?
Kombucha appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 56,108th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Kombucha in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense fermented tea:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does kombucha come from?
Origin disputed. Possibly from Japanese 昆布茶 (konbucha, literally “kelp (konbu) tea”), a different type of beverage, and not related to fermentation. Alternatively, derived from Kombu, reportedly a Korean physician who brought the fermented tea to Japan as a curative for Emperor Inkyo in 414 CE + cha (“tea”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).