Where do you source the mushrooms?Updated 2 years ago

Our top priorities are to offer functional mushrooms as nature intended, in the way they’ve been used for hundreds (some, even thousands) of years in cultures around the world, and that have been scientifically proven. This trifecta means using real mushrooms. 

Let us explain. The mushroom marketplace is currently flooded with products that don’t actually contain mushrooms. Instead, they are almost all mycelium (essentially mushroom roots system), grown on grains like rice and oats, without any of the actual mushroom. This grain is not separated from the mycelium so you are getting mostly grain, with some mycelium. Almost all US Grown “mushrooms follow this method which is not only incredibly misleading, it is also not how nature intended, far from the way cultures have used mushrooms for thousands of years, and scientifically proven to be far less beneficial than the real mushrooms. 

We aim to educate our consumers on what is truly important to look for when using functional mushrooms. Using real mushrooms is at the very top of our list. Even though this method is 5-10x more expensive, time-consuming, and means we choose to not source for the US, we are committed to offering the best, most nutrient-dense, clean, quality, and powerful ingredients possible. 

We use the real mushrooms, also known as fruiting bodies, of Reishi, Lion's Mane, Cordyceps, Shiitake, Turkey Tail, Tremella, and Maitake grown and cultivated on an amazing organic family farm in China. We’ve been working with these farmers for over 7 years and visit regularly to ensure the practices are aligned with our values as a brand.

The decision to source from China was made very mindfully and for several reasons:

• China has the longest history of mushroom cultivation on the planet. They’ve been growing these specific species of functional mushrooms for over a thousand years—all the way back to 600 AD!
• China is THE leading producer of functional mushrooms and the only place you can purchase organic, log-grown, extracted real mushroom fruiting bodies
• The organic family farm we’ve partnered with prides itself on optimizing the growing medium for each specific mushroom, so they grow exactly like they would in nature. For example, the red Reishi fruiting body is grown on basswood logs that are buried underground. 

Additionally, our Chaga mushrooms are sustainably wild-harvested. The Finnish favorite and King of Mushrooms, Chaga, grows on Birch trees, so we source ours from organic land on the largest Birch forest in the world, the Taiga, located in Siberia. Only part of the Chaga conk is removed to ensure it will continue to grow without harming the tree!

All of our mushrooms are extracted to provide the highest amount of beta-glucans and polysaccharides, as well as triterpenes and other more adaptogenic compounds. Triterpenes, which give the mushrooms their increased adaptogenic properties, are poorly soluble in water. To fully extract all of the compounds from the terpenes, the extraction takes the process one step further by using alcohol to extract.

Our main focus is to offer you the safest, cleanest, and highest-quality products possible. To ensure this, once the mushrooms are brought to our production facilities within the United States, every single batch of our products are tested in third-party laboratories for heavy metals, allergens, bad bacteria, yeasts, molds, mycotoxins, and pesticides before they get in your hands. This is very important to us, and we’ve been doing it since day 1. You can read even more about our quality standards here!

Not finding what you’re looking for? Please feel free to reach out to our Customer Success Team at [email protected] or (213) 699-4616 and we’d be happy to help!