What is mushroom coffee?
Mushroom coffee is a blend of coffee and medicinal mushroom extracts. We use lion’s mane and cordyceps mushrooms in our Flow and Mojo mushroom coffee blends respectively, along with other adaptogens with synergistic properties.
Medicinal mushroom extracts are adaptogens – they help your body and mind adapt to physical, mental and emotional stressors. Blending them together with a fine microground coffee creates an earthy, delicious cup of coffee with additional health benefits. The microground coffee in our blends contains 6% freshly ground coffee and the rest is spray-dried instant coffee powder and is tested for heavy metals, toxins and mould.
It all sounds very simple, but the processes used to get benefits from medicinal mushrooms aren’t as simple as dropping a few of them into your favourite brew and waiting for the magic to happen. Mushrooms have a different cellular structure to plants, plants are made from cellulose which is easily digested to get the nutritional benefits, whereas mushrooms have a chitin cell wall which our bodies cannot break down so easily. To get the benefits from medicinal mushrooms, the beneficial compounds need to be extracted. We use an organic 8:1 dual-extract of lion’s mane with 25.0%* beta-glucans and a pure organic 8:1 dual-extract of Cordyceps with 0.535%* cordycepin & 27.4%* beta-glucans from fruiting bodies only. It’s important to ensure we have a high-amount of the beneficial active compounds which are beta glucans, hericenones, hericerins, erinacines and cordycepin in lion’s mane and cordyceps.
*The active compounds noted above are for our latest batch of medicinal mushrooms, each batch is unique and has a slightly different amount of active compounds.
Why mushroom coffee?
There are multiple reasons why adaptogens, such as medicinal mushrooms, and coffee are the perfect pairing. The first is with adaptogenic coffee you get all the benefits of regular coffee whilst minimizing any side-effects. Caffeine is a nootropic, it increases our alertness and attention by blocking our adenosine receptors (which make us drowsy), however, caffeine can also increase our cortisol levels (our stress hormone) – which can result in jitters/anxiety. Adaptogens can help balance our cortisol levels, allowing us to enjoy coffee and get the benefits of caffeine whilst minimising stress! Mushroom coffee has been especially well-received by those of us who are usually sensitive to caffeine, allowing us to enjoy coffee and get the benefits of caffeine – which is a nootropic in itself for its positive effects on cognitive function, without the side-effects.
Secondly, caffeine is absorbed quickly and we can start feeling the benefits within 15mins of consumption, however it can lead to a crash. Adaptogens such as medicinal mushrooms can give us a sustained level of energy , without a crash. For example, cordyceps mushroom is known to boost our ATP, our energy molecule, which makes it ideal before working out or when fatigued.
