Medicinal mushrooms: reishi, lion's mane, cordyceps and chaga, their tradition and their form

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The plants that walk with the cycles, to live inside them fully.

In short. Medicinal mushrooms are a handful of fungi that Asia and the far North have been drinking for centuries: reishi, lion's mane, cordyceps and chaga, along with maitake, shiitake and turkey tail. We offer four of them as extracts: reishi, lion's mane, cordyceps and chaga. This guide tells where each one comes from and shows how to read an extract: fruiting body or mycelium, water or dual extraction, declared contents. We make no health promises: in the European Union, no health claim is authorised for any of these mushrooms.

What are medicinal mushrooms?

The word comes from the old pharmacopoeias, Chinese and Japanese above all, which listed these mushrooms among their substances. You will also read adaptogenic mushrooms or functional mushrooms. All three name the same habit: a mushroom taken in small amounts over a long time, as a decoction, a tea or a powder stirred into a warm cup.

Most come from Chinese and Japanese tradition. Chaga comes from the birch forests of Siberia, Northern Europe and Canada. Some are still gathered wild, some are cultivated.

Which medicinal mushrooms are there?

Reishi, the mushroom of ten thousand years

In Chinese it is lingzhi; in Japanese mannentake, "the ten-thousand-year mushroom". Its red-brown cap shines like lacquer and grows as a fan from the wood. The Shennong Ben Cao Jing, a Chinese materia medica of the Han era, places it in the highest class, shang pin: the substances held safe for long use.

The Taoists made it the plant of the immortals. On old paintings Shou Lao, the god of long life, holds it in his hand, and legend says the immortal Magu owed her immortality to a reishi wine. Wild reishi was so rare that an imperial edict of the year 1004, tradition says, ordered every reishi found in the Empire to be brought to the palace. It has been cultivated since the 1970s; the wild one remains rare.

At INFUSE: reishi as thin dried slices, wild-harvested in Siberia in the depth of winter, and a 15:1 fruiting-body extract from reishi cultivated in China, dual-extracted with water and alcohol, from a certified organic supply chain, with at least 20% beta-glucans and 4% triterpenes declared. It tastes earthy and very bitter. Tradition softens it with honey, liquorice, jujube or goji berries.

Lion's mane

Instead of a cap it wears a cascade of white spines hanging from the trunk of old broadleaf trees. In China it is houtou, "monkey head", and it was long a luxury of the imperial court, so rarely was it found in the wild. In Japan it is yamabushitake, the mushroom of the yamabushi, the mountain ascetics of Shugendō, whose robes carry white pompoms. Our sources do not show first-hand that the yamabushi ate it: we pass on the name without inventing a ritual for it. It has been cultivated since the mid-20th century.

At INFUSE: lion's mane as a powder, and as an 8:1 fruiting-body extract, made with hot water only, from a certified organic supply chain, with at least 18% beta-glucans and no filler. Why the fruiting body: mycelium grown on grain is often milled together with its grain, brings a lot of starch, and starch counts in a "polysaccharides" figure.

Cordyceps, summer grass, winter worm

In Tibetan it is yartsa gunbu, "summer grass, winter worm". The wild mushroom grows on the high pastures of Tibet, Bhutan and Nepal, above 3,000 metres, from a caterpillar it has colonised underground. Nomad families gather it by hand; the harvest weighs on the pastures, and the mushroom has become rare and expensive. Botanists now call the wild species Ophiocordyceps sinensis. Chinese medicine links it to the Lung and Kidney meridians.

Our cordyceps is cultivated: a 6:1 extract of CS-4 strain mycelium, from the same lineage as yartsa gunbu, made in Estonia, alcohol-free, vegan and fully water-soluble. Over 20% beta-glucans and over 0.5% adenosine are declared, checked by an independent laboratory.

Chaga, the black gold of the birch

Chaga breaks out of the bark of living birches as a black, cracked lump that takes ten years or more to grow. All along the boreal belt, peoples know it: the Khanty in Western Siberia, the Komi, the Sami, and in Canada the Cree, Innu, Ojibwe and Anishinaabe. Among the Anishinaabe it is called shkitagen and it keeps the fire: a spark that falls on it smoulders inside until it is needed again (Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass).

At INFUSE: chaga wild-harvested in Estonia, in winter, from the living tree and never cultivated; as a powder for the decoction, and as an 8:1 dual extract from a certified organic supply chain, with at least 12% glucans and 0.5% betulin, a substance the mushroom takes from its birch. Where birch forests retreat, wild chaga becomes scarce, and the superfood trade has over-harvested some regions. One more reason never to harvest from young trees, nor so much that the birch suffers.

Maitake, shiitake, turkey tail

Three more mushrooms complete the list. Maitake means "dancing mushroom" in Japanese: legend says gatherers danced for joy when they found it. Shiitake is an everyday cooking mushroom in East Asia. Turkey tail, yun zhi in Chinese, "cloud mushroom", wears striped fans in every shade of brown. We offer none of the three.

Fruiting body or mycelium?

The fruiting body is the mushroom you see. The mycelium is the web of fine threads it grows from. Many powders on the market are mycelium grown on grain and milled with the grain. The powder then holds a lot of starch, which counts in a "polysaccharides" figure. A declared beta-glucan content, and a statement of what exactly was extracted, tell you more.

For reishi and lion's mane we use the fruiting body, for chaga the wild-grown lump itself, for cordyceps the mycelium of the CS-4 strain, because the wild fruiting body is rare and its harvest weighs on the high pastures.

Water extract or dual extract?

Hot water dissolves the beta-glucans. Reishi's triterpenes and chaga's betulin only dissolve in alcohol. A dual extract combines both; a plain tea leaves the alcohol-soluble compounds in the mushroom. That is why our reishi and our chaga are dual-extracted. For lion's mane, the fruiting-body compounds we look for are water-soluble: hot water is enough. The cordyceps extract is made without alcohol.

The ratio, for example 15:1, tells how many parts of dried mushroom were used for one part of extract.

How to take medicinal mushrooms

This is how we do it at the House. These are markers from tradition and from our suppliers, to adjust for each person:

• Reishi, lion's mane and chaga extracts: about 0.5 g, once or twice a day, stirred into a warm drink, water, tea or food.
• Cordyceps extract: 0.25 to 1 g in a warm drink.
• Reishi slices: 5 to 10 g in a litre of water, simmered for two to three hours until reduced by half, then strained. The slices can be simmered again several times.
• Chaga powder: two to three spoonfuls for a litre of water, 20 to 30 minutes at a gentle simmer, until the decoction is deep dark. Chaga can be reused too.

These mushrooms are never boiled hard, only simmered. Tradition drinks them regularly, in small amounts, often in the morning.

Making mushroom coffee

Mushroom coffee is coffee with a mushroom extract in it. Stir about 0.5 g of lion's mane or chaga extract, or 0.25 to 1 g of cordyceps extract, into the finished cup: the extracts dissolve directly, no decoction needed. Reishi suits it less; it is very bitter.

Precautions

We give no medical advice. These notes also appear on each mushroom's page:

• Pregnancy and breastfeeding: avoid, there is not enough data.
• Known mushroom allergy: avoid; the first time, only a small amount.
• Anticoagulants, planned surgery: check with your doctor first. Stop reishi and chaga about two weeks before an operation.
• Autoimmune disease, immunosuppressants, organ transplant: not without medical advice.
• Blood pressure medication (reishi, chaga) or diabetes medication (chaga): check with your doctor first.
• Chaga is high in oxalate: not with calcium oxalate kidney stones or a low-oxalate diet.
• Lion's mane: a few people report unusual restlessness or low mood after several weeks. If so, stop.

When in doubt, ask your doctor before the mushroom.

What can be said about medicinal mushrooms?

In the European Union, a food may only carry a health claim that has been authorised (Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006). None has been authorised to date for reishi, lion's mane, cordyceps or chaga, even though studies on them exist. That is why we tell the tradition, describe the form and give preparation markers. Promising what a mushroom does in the body is promising more than Europe allows.

Sources

• Shennong Ben Cao Jing (Han era): lingzhi listed among the shang pin.
• Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, Milkweed Editions, 2013: the Anishinaabe shkitagen.
• Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods. eur-lex.europa.eu
• Our suppliers' technical sheets: extraction method, ratio and declared contents of the reishi, lion's mane, cordyceps and chaga extracts.

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