From Tea Fermentation to New Technologies: Multisectoral Applications of Kombucha SCOBY Through the Lens of Methodi Ordinatio

The Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY) is a cellulose-based biofilm resulting from the fermentation of sweetened tea by a microbial consortium of acetic acid bacteria and yeasts. This study applies the Methodi Ordinatio technique to systematically identify, rank, and analyze the most relevant scientific publications on the applications of SCOBY. A comprehensive search in SCOPUS and Web of Science yielded 179 articles, after manual filtration. The InOrdinatio index, which combines citation count, publication year, and journal impact factor, was used for ranking to select a representative sample of the most important contributions (117 articles). The highest-ranked article scored 128.9, and the lowest 42.6. China led in scientific output (14.01%), followed by India (11.46%), the UK and USA (5.10% each), and Brazil (4.46%). The International Journal of Biological Macromolecules was the most frequently used journal for publications in this field. “Bacterial cellulose” was the most cited keyword (61 times), followed by “kombucha” (41) and “fermentation” (29). A consistent rise in publications has been observed over the past five years. Four main application areas were identified: bacterial cellulose (BC) (38%), biosustainable materials (28%), biomedical (17%), and food-related uses (17%). Most of the studies related to BC production (52%) searched for alternative substrates, and 18% focused on the isolation and identification of the most productive microorganisms within SCOBY. For biomedical applications, a unifying theme is the development of SCOBY-based materials with intrinsic antibacterial properties. These findings emphasize SCOBY’s emerging role in sustainable innovation and circular economic frameworks.