Is Mushroom Coffee Healthier?

Coffee can be incredible for mood and alertness (just check out this double-blind study by the National Institute of Health). But add mushrooms and those benefits go far beyond a little energy kick. 

Mushroom coffee offers an enhanced brew that infuses your coffee with powerful super ‘shrooms for 🦠 immunity, 😓 stress, 🍽️ gut health, 🧠 fo​cus, and more. It also helps with the dreaded crash from regular coffee by giving you more sustained, balanced energy. ⚡ This means less jitters, crashes, or drain on your adrenals.

 

Is mushroom coffee the fix to regular coffee’s dark side?

Almost! Not all mushroom coffees are created equal. It's easy to pick a seemingly beneficial mushroom coffee that is full of fillers, ineffective ingredients, and even toxins. But don’t worry! 

This is the everything-you-need-to-know guide when it comes to picking a mushroom coffee. Because you really can have it all! Keep the morning ritual you love. Add incredible benefits like greater focus, more energy, better digestion, a stronger immune system, and more. And the cherry on top: ditch the jitters, crash, and restless nights that often come with regular coffee.

 

Hold up, but is mushroom coffee psychedelic?

Nope, those mushrooms are far different from the ones in most mushroom coffees. There are actually thousands of mushrooms in the Fungi Kingdom (~6x as many species as the Plant Kingdom!). Each has drastically different compounds. 

Psychedelic mushrooms most often contain the psychoactive constituent psilocybin. 

Culinary mushrooms are those you might find on your pizza, the portobellos, and criminis of the world (which by the way, are actually the same fungi at different stages of their life cycle!). 

Then, there are functional mushrooms. These are mushrooms that have an astonishing number of beneficial and medicinal compounds. That's how they get their many health benefits!

 

What are Functional Mushrooms?

Functional mushrooms (like reishi, chaga, and lion's mane) are not psychedelic. Instead, they offer incredible health benefits. These mushrooms are among the most nutrient-rich foods on earth. 🌎

They can support your immune system, gut, stress management, energy, focus, and more. They each have unique properties that outshine most “superfoods” on the market today. 

Plus, they’re totally legal and you can find them at some grocery stores!

Mushrooms With Research-Backed Benefits

Functional mushrooms can supercharge focus, ignite energy, boost your mood, and reduce stress. And there are hundreds of studies and thousands of years of use cases to prove it.

Lion’s mane is one of the most popular functional mushrooms. It's renowned for improving focus and supporting a clear mind. One study shows that 250 mg of lion's mane taken 3x a day, significantly supported cognition in just 4 months*.

It’s not just lion’s mane! Chaga is another powerful mushroom. It works like an internal anti-aging serum with about 1,300x more antioxidants than blueberries.

In a study on chronic fatigue syndrome, reishi mushrooms helped reduce fatigue markers.* 

Cordyceps is a favorite among Olympic athletes. Research on cordyceps mushrooms shows it can improve VO2 max. The benefits of functional mushrooms are almost endless.

 If you're sold on the benefits, check out the #1 mushroom coffee 👉 jump to the top mushroom coffees brands ranked!

 

The best “mushrooms” for real benefits

Some mushroom powders don’t actually contain the real mushroom (the part you’re currently picturing in your head). Most studies use the fruiting body of the mushroom. That's the part you think of as the actual mushroom (and has more active compounds). 

 

There are several parts of fungal anatomy 🍄

1️⃣ The part of the mushroom visible to the human eye, what most of us think of when we visualize a mushroom, is actually called the fruiting body. (Think of this like the apple on a tree!)

2️⃣ Spores are the reproductive "seeds" that hold a mushrooms DNA and allows it to spread to new areas.

3️⃣ Below ground or within the substrate the mushroom is growing on (often trees, when it comes to functional mushrooms), is a vast network that can very colloquially be thought of as the “mushroom roots”, known as mycelium. Note: they are WAY different from plant roots and do serve many critical functions for the health of our ecosystems and almost all plants on Earth! 

🚨 Mushroom coffee with mycelium almost always means lots of fillers!

This is because mycelium is grown on grains, most commonly rice or oats. When processed, the substrate (what the mycelium is growing on) is ground up with the mycelium. Products selling mycelium can be up to 90-95% grain! Don’t be fooled by paying for expensive oats when you intend to get the powerful benefits of fruiting bodies. 

 

Are Functional Mushrooms Safe?

You bet! Functional mushrooms are safe, nontoxic, and sold as dietary supplements worldwide. As with any dietary or herbal supplement, pay attention to your body's response. Consult your doctor if you're pregnant, breastfeeding, or have underlying health conditions.

The main thing to be watchful of is the quality of the mushrooms. Mushrooms are like sponges (aka bioaccumulators). 🧽 They soak up everything in their environment. This is great if they're grown on nutrient-rich trees or logs (just like in nature). But it's bad news if your mushrooms are grown on substrates that contain pesticides, herbicides, or heavy metals.

All mushrooms you eat, both culinary and functional, should always be: 

• USDA certified organic
• 3rd party tested for toxins (heavy metals, mycotoxins, molds, yeast, and irradiation)

 

 

How to Choose the Best Mushroom Coffee?

It's essential to consider several factors. First, you want to ensure you get the best quality and effectiveness. But you’ll also want to consider what tastes the best and fits your current habits. 

👉 Jump to the #1 ranked mushroom coffee now!

Functional mushrooms work best when used consistently over time. So the closer the taste and texture to regular coffee, the more likely you’ll continue to use it. And build up the benefits! 

Tero (founder of Four Sigmatic) has an easy guide on what to consider when buying a mushroom coffee in this video:

For a deeper-dive, here's a breakdown of what to look for and why each aspect is important:

 

Mushroom Coffee Quality & Effectiveness

• USDA Organic: this is important for everything you consume but especially for coffee. ​​Conventionally, there are terrible synthetic chemicals and fertilizers used to grow coffee beans. But by removing those, it’s much better for you, and the planet.

• It's critical that the mushrooms are organic too. Mushrooms are bioaccumulators. This means they easily absorb the nutrients from the substrate they're growing on. 🧽 This is part of what makes mushrooms so nutrient-rich. But it also means they can absorb a large amount of toxins. If they’re grown on poor-quality substrates, you may have lots of pesticides or heavy metals.

• 3rd party tested for toxins: testing is crucial to confirm the product doesn’t contain heavy metals, mycotoxins, molds, yeast, or irradiation. Because mushrooms are bioaccumulators you need to be extra cautious.

🌱 TIP: Look for the USDA Organic Certification on packaging

• Extracted: if the mushrooms are not extracted, your body can’t access the many beneficial compounds. Extracting mushrooms breaks down chitin, a tough compound found in their cell walls (similar to what you'd find in shrimp, lobster, or crab shells). This allows the beneficial compounds to be bioavailable to your body. 

🔎 TIP: Look for the word "extract" on the Supplement Facts panel to make sure your body can actually utilize the mushroom.

• Avoid mycelium, use fruiting bodies: the actual mushroom part of the fungi (the fruiting body), contains the highest concentration of active compounds. Mycelium are the roots of the mushroom (which have less active compounds than the fruiting body). These products tend to have lots of fillers! They’re grown on grains like rice or oats making 90-95% of the "mushroom powder" filler grains.

🚫 TIP: avoid “cultured on mycelium” or “myceliated oats/rice/grain” in the Supplements Fact panel.

Real fruiting-body mushrooms consistently test high for beta-glucans, triterpenoids, and estergolsterol. AKA the compounds that give functional mushrooms their benefits. 

For an even deeper dive into fruiting body vs mycelium, check out our blog here.

• Start at 500mg: An effective dose of extracted functional mushrooms is between 500 mg - 1500 mg. Always start small and slowly build up after a few days as your body allows. Benefits start plateauing around 3,000 mg/day.

👍TIP: you can combine functional mushrooms with vitamin C rich foods to improve the absorbency of the mushrooms.

 

• Grown on wood: When it comes to mushrooms, they are what they eat! So the quality of the substrate they’re grown on matters. It's best to look for wildcrafted, or grown on logs to ensure your mushrooms are as nutrient-rich as possible. 

In nature, functional mushrooms grow on trees. (Cordyceps being one of the only exceptions. Read more on that here.) 

 

 

Ideal Mushroom Coffee Taste & Texture

• Smooth texture without grit: Some mushroom coffees contain sediments that can make it very unsatisfying to drink. 

When particles from the mushroom coffee mix fall to the bottom of the cup, this is called "settling." It happens when the particles are not fully dissolved or suspended in the liquid. This causes them to separate and settle at the bottom of the container. 

For a better experience, choose mushroom coffee that dissolves easily. Better dissolvability means less sediment at the bottom of the cup. Poor dissolvability may be a sign of low-quality ingredients or fillers.

• Real flavors from the ingredients: Look for products with real flavors that come from the ingredients. Not “natural” or artificial flavors. It's deceiving but “natural” flavoring might not be what you expect.

For example, Castoreum is a common natural flavor for vanilla and raspberry. This comes from the castor sacs of beavers. Yup, you read that right! It’s a secretion that beavers use to mark their territory. Unfortunately, it finds its way into our food as a “natural” flavoring.

❌ TIP: avoid any sort of “flavorings.” Artificial and natural flavors both mean you’re not getting the real ingredient. Instead, it's from an additive.

The #1 Mushroom Coffee 

#1 Four Sigmatic

(Just a little disclaimer: we are Four Sigmatic!)

But we truly believe we’ve crafted a better cup of mushroom coffee (and countless others agree). Not only have 100,000+ consumers subscribed to our mushroom coffee, but here are just a few others that ranked us as #1: Taste of Home, Best Reviews, The Quality Edit, Quench List, Body Nutrition.

We're the 1st mushroom coffee brand in the US (and still #1 today)!

Our best-selling Think Organic Coffee features ground Arabic coffee infused with lion’s mane and chaga mushrooms. Great for your brain, and delicious for your morning cup! It's also consistently the #1 ground coffee on Amazon. You can also feel good about the fact that our coffee comes from a small family-run co-op in Honduras.

👉 We wanted to make sure our mushrooms were the highest quality, and most beneficial possible:

• USDA Organic - always! Not just our mushrooms but our coffee too.

• Only fruiting bodies (no filler grains or mycelium here)

• Dual extracted for maximum bioavailability

• Grown on wood (directly from the wild or on logs)

• Packed with 500 mg of log-grown lion’s mane and wildcrafted chaga for focus, a clear mind, and immunity

We also know that you need to love what you’re drinking to brew it daily and unlock the true potential of our mushrooms. That’s why we use real coffee that tastes just like your typical cup. Seriously, you can’t taste the difference with a regular, dark roast coffee.

And if you’re still uncertain–try it out risk-free! We have a 💸 money-back guarantee. 💸 That’s just how confident we are that you’ll love the taste and feel the difference.