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I recently came across a pack of probiotic teas from a major brand that claim to support healthy digestion.

We are proud to offer a variety of flavorful teas that combine BC30 Probiotics with quality ingredients you know and love.

The packaging states:

Supports Healthy Digestion

The directions say to brew the tea in boiling water:

Start with fresh cold water and bring to a rolling boil. Pour over tea bag, steep 2 to 4 minutes and remove tea bag.

Or, for iced tea:

Start with fresh cold water and bring to a rolling boil. Steep a little longer then pour over ice.

However, it seems unlikely that the bacteria would be able to survive this process, since boiling kills most bacteria that don't form endospores.

Now, assuming the strain used (BC30, a strain of Heyndrickxia coagulans; formerly Bacillus coagulans) is effective - which is not the case for many probiotics, but there is evidence that BC30 is effective for some gastrointestinal conditions - would it still support digestive health after being steeped as tea?

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    I've tried a dive into the related literature and there's some evidence that strains of B. coagulans (with an added coating) can survive brewing (in sufficient numbers), but whilst the Heyndrickxia coagulans is mentioned in support of certain things in the studies, there doesn't seem to be specific evidence either way that's turning up in searches. I commend anyone who can find it.
    – Jiminy Cricket.
    Commented Sep 3 at 5:44

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It's not the exact same strain but see Evaluation of probiotic Bacillus coagulans MTCC 5856 viability after tea and coffee brewing and its growth in GIT hostile environment, which used an electric brewer. The bottom line:

B. coagulans MTCC 5856 showed remarkable survival (94.94% and 99.76% in unroasted green coffee and tea, respectively) after brewing conditions and was able to grow in GIT [gastrointestinal tract] hostile conditions using tea and coffee as a sole nutritional source.

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  • Is brewing with unroasted green coffee a thing people do?
    – Schwern
    Commented Sep 3 at 17:46
  • @Schwern I've never heard of green coffee but people allege it has a number of benefits. I can find some guides online explaining how to brew it too. (Note that all green coffee is unroasted, unsure why the article would be redundant.)
    – Laurel
    Commented Sep 3 at 17:56
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    I was wondering if the results were applicable to what people are actually drinking. Flipping through the paper, it worked for all cases: roasted and unroasted coffee, black, green, and oolong tea (section 3). Seems this is particular to Bacillus coagulans (see Fig 5).
    – Schwern
    Commented Sep 3 at 18:05
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    They brewed tea at 80C (rather than 100C), but I'll accept this as showing that the claim I asked about is plausible.
    – Eonema
    Commented Sep 3 at 21:50

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