Open your mind to the possibilities of mixing a little bit of mushroom magic into your daily coffee routine.
Words By Ayanda Dlamini, originally published in Issue 44
We know what you’re thinking. This publication is pushing psychedelics now?! Fear not, dear Reader, the science and innovation involved in unlocking the nutritional and healing properties in mushrooms is extremely far from the Shrooms you’re imagining.
That’s right, the world of Mushrooms and Coffee are forming an alliance. These two seemingly unrelated phenomena beautifully come together and create some health alchemy. They collaborate in a way that allows us to appreciate and understand the complex properties within our environment, and acknowledge the powerful link between humans and nature.
It turns out there’s so much more to mushrooms than just food. I have now found myself in a deep dive of research that I feel is essential to share with the coffee community. Research that feels pivotal to our human livelihoods and pioneering in the way in which we think.
What are functional mushrooms?
There are plenty of impressions people can get when talking about mushrooms outside of the ones we know and eat. So no, I will not be referring to Magic Mushrooms, although that’s definitely a related topic and worth a discussion for another day. We’re talking about the field known as Functional Mushrooms.
Functional Mushrooms are a type of Fungi that contain incredible health and healing properties over and above their nutritional value. Functional mushrooms are good at regulating imbalances in our bodies, on a physical and mental level. I mean, it’s not as if we don’t know this already, but what we put into our bodies has a big impact on our bodies! And there is great healing power to be found in nature. Exploring the world of Functional Mushrooms has taught me that there is so much human beings are yet to learn and discover about our complex universe.
Rooted in common practices from East Asia, such as Taoism and Buddhism, where people relied on empowering themselves through nature, functional mushrooms were used alongside their traditional practices, for spiritual transformation and alignment. These mushrooms were a natural resource, aiding in longevity and higher life function.
Founder of one of the leading companies in this game, Tero Isokauppila of Four Sigmatic based in Finland, puts it like this: "We started as a hard-to-understand brand ‘on shrooms’ but now we're doubling down on our true calling of delivering you mental performance and wellbeing.”
Foraging mushrooms had always been an Isokauppila family tradition.
“The day our grandparents decided to blend their favourite mushrooms into their daily brew, a better morning ritual was born.”
The company uses organic, log-grown, fruiting body extracts of functional mushrooms. Danielle Ryan Broida registered herbalist and part of the Four Sigmatic team, unpacks ‘fruiting body’ for us:
The mushroom marketplace is dominated by products that don’t actually contain any real mushrooms (more officially known as the “fruiting body”). Instead, products are made of mycelium, essentially the “root system” of the mushroom, and contain no mushrooms at all. Yet in all the thousands of years, humans have used mushrooms, every single culture has always and only used the fruiting body exclusively - not the mycelium.
This means that the vast majority of clinical studies, every traditional herbal medicine text, all folklore, lineage, and cultural traditions of using mushrooms have always been the fruiting body.
All commercially grown mycelium is grown on grain in a sterile laboratory environment, and if exposed to any so-called “intruders”, the entire batch would be considered contaminated and the mycelium would be thrown away. Many so-called mushroom products are up to 90% grain (rice or oats) with 10% mycelium.
To experience the power of medicinal mushrooms through real people and their experiences, I reached out to a wonderful woman named Natalie Joel, who works for a company named OrganoGold based out of Canada. The company incorporates Functional Mushrooms in products such as Coffee, Tea and Hot Chocolate.
In our introduction, Natalie opted to include another woman to our discussion. An individual she referred to as "extremely knowledgeable” when it comes to the finer details of the field. Her name is Wendy Lee Abel. Wendy passionately explained to me how Functional Mushrooms rose to prominence in the western world, and how we are beginning to understand the complex properties of the numerous different Fungi, and their uses.
What are the health benefits?
Wendy’s beginners guide to understanding the world of Functional Mushrooms looks like this…
Reishi:
Cordyceps:
Lion’s Mane:
Like the mushrooms we eat, there is apparently no limit to ingesting these mushrooms. They’re an adaptogen (which basically means they help our bodies manage stress and restore balance after a stressful situation) and a superfood that can be incorporated in our day to day drinks.
The world of mushrooms continued to lure me in. I’m left mesmerized by the way each and every mushroom is uniquely shaped and formed, their beautiful botanical range of colours and shapes, as well as the fact that mushrooms are a part of an entire kingdom of their own, separate from plants and animals.
As my deep dive of research continued, I had the pleasure of speaking to Pascal Bauwen from Above Ground Coffee. Above Ground is one of the pioneering roasteries in Durban to introduce Functional Mushrooms in their coffee. Pascal's keen interest in diet met with his love for coffee, resulting in their Organic Honduras Coffee, which is combined with mushroom extracts. Designed with the purpose of incorporating these superfoods in our already existing daily routine; drinking coffee.
Above Ground is known for their “Supercharged” and “Boundless” coffee and mushroom extract blends. They include mushrooms such as Lion’s Mane and Cordyceps, as well two more Functional Mushrooms I come to learn about through their blends, called Turkey Tail and Chaga.
Turkeytail
Chaga:
Growing up, Pascal struggled with Attention Deficit Disorder and as a result, was put on medications that he felt negatively impacted his day to day. So for him, the discovery of Functional Mushrooms was huge and warranted much investigation.
His first time experiencing the positive effects of Functional Mushrooms was incorporating Lions Mane extract into his day. He describes his experience as “effective” and “subtle” as opposed to the harsh potency of his typical medication. He noticed a significant cognitive change as well feeling more in tune with himself, without barring any symptoms from the medicinal mushrooms.
It is also important to note that you can’t just chuck a bunch of raw mushrooms into your morning coffee.
“Mushrooms are inedible raw. In order for your body to access their nutritional benefits like polysaccharides and triterpenes, functional mushrooms must be extracted.” Explains the team from Four Sigmatic, “Mushrooms contain a compound in their cell wall called chitin. This is the same compound found in crustaceans like crab and shrimp shells so you can imagine how tough it is! Chitin acts like a door, blocking your body from being able to get to all of the compounds in the mushroom. Think of chitin like the door to your kitchen. You’re outside the door, hoping to get in because you know how much delicious and nutritious food lies on the other side. But unless the door has been opened, there’s no way you can access what’s on the other side. The same goes for our bodies and mushrooms. This is why all functional mushrooms in Four Sigmatic products are extracted. We do both a hot water and alcohol extraction to get the most out of each species we use. Once extracted, we spray-dry the extract to create a powder. All our products are potent and ready-to-use (hot or cold) as soon as you get them. We’ve done the heavy lifting for you so all you have to do is sit back, relax, and give yourself props for adding nature’s most powerful ingredients to your routine.”
So do these mushroom extracts affect the coffee’s flavour?
Pascal of Now Coffee explains that, “The mushrooms do taste different, if you smell them, you get an idea of how they taste. They affect the taste of a coffee, but we test extensively for months and months with different doses and different mushroom extracts to determine a balance of what works best.”
“In our blends we’ve gone with the maximum dose that can be combined with the coffee without affecting the taste of the coffee too much. So most people won't notice it. But if you have coffee enthusiast, then yes, you'll be able to separate the taste of the coffee and the mushroom extracts. We choose combinations of extracts that taste good together. So, for example, chaga is quite cool. It's quite herbal. It's got a Jasmine-like taste. It's got a good elements and tastes quite pleasant. So we combine that with Lion’s Mane, because Lion’s Mane does not taste the greatest. Turkeytail and cordyceps are quite similar, so we combine them to help compliment the coffee taste. We’ve gotten good feedback from them! We literally get people that say they prefer the taste of the coffee with the mushroom extracts now.”
From my own personal experience, I’m definitely in the beginning stages of exploring the world of mushrooms. I’m digesting all I can about mushrooms and their exceptional abilities, but I’ve barely scratched the surface. As with all things, I guess there’s only one way to know for sure if functional mushrooms could work for you…
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