Adding mushrooms like Reishi, Cordyceps, and Turkey Tail, to your daily cup of joe can have a meaningful impact on your cognitive performance, your energy throughout the day, and even your immune health. Adaptogens, like mushrooms, work best when taken consistently. Adding them to your coffee each morning is an easy and convenient way of incorporating these nutritional powerhouses into your daily routine. Just like coffee, the health benefits of mushrooms are rooted in science and have been celebrated for centuries. Read on to learn more about this not-so-new superfood combo.
Coffee has been around for centuries. In fact, we know that people were getting together to chat over a cup of black coffee as far back as the 16th century. Today, coffee has become an undeniable and inextricable part of our culture. The idea of adding mushrooms to your coffee, however, may sound like something new.
This seemingly new superfood trend actually dates back to the 1940s, when people in Finland introduced Chaga mushrooms as an alternative to coffee, in response to a wartime coffee shortage. The founder of the popular brand, Four Sigmatic mushroom coffee, is actually Finnish, and has done a great job of bringing broad awareness to this winning health combination.
If you are a coffee aficionado, you might balk at the idea of adding anything to your rich black coffee, other than maybe perfectly frothed, steamed milk. However, there is much to be gained when you consider the broad benefits of drinking mushroom coffee daily.
We should clarify that the mushrooms in mushroom coffee are not the white button mushrooms you see in the grocery store. These are functional mushrooms that have been highly-revered in Eastern and Chinese medicine for centuries. As mushroom supplements, mushrooms like Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, Reishi, and Chaga are becoming increasingly popular for their broad range of benefits, including supporting healthy brain function, natural energy production, immune health, gut health, healthy antioxidant activity, and more.
Consider these 3 major health benefits as reasons to swap your typical morning latte for a steaming cup of mushroom coffee.
Mushroom coffee benefit #1: Mental performance
Nootropics are substances thought to support brain health and mental performance. They may have positive effects on thinking, memory, focus, alertness, clarity and other cognitive functions*. Nootropic supplements can be synthetic, but many natural substances are also considered nootropics, including rhodiola rosea, ginkgo biloba and functional mushrooms like Lion’s Mane.
Caffeine, naturally occurring in coffee, is the most widely consumed nootropic out there. Regular coffee drinkers know that their morning java makes them feel more awake, and can help stimulate memory and brain function, as well as increase well-being, mood and concentration - as long as you don’t consume too much of it. That’s where the benefits of mushrooms and mushroom powder come in.
If you find yourself asking the question, how much is too much coffee?, then adding a nootropic boost of Lion’s Mane organic mushroom powder is a great way to make your morning coffee work harder. With Lion’s Mane mushroom powder in your coffee you can get the added boost in focus, mental alertness, mood and even creativity in your first cup of coffee. As a result, you can avoid the negative impacts of too much caffeine, which can leave you jittery and feeling tired later in the day.
Mushroom coffee benefit #2: Sustained Energy
Another one of our favorite mushrooms is Cordyceps. Cordyceps have been studied for their ability to increase the availability of oxygen in the blood. As a result, Cordyceps mushroom supplements can help support healthy circulation and respiratory health, and ultimately improve energy levels and even mood. This means that when the effects of the caffeine in your normal coffee start to wear off, there is a longer lasting and sustained level of energy that you can enjoy from the addition of the Cordyceps.
Lion’s mane is not the only functional mushroom in the kingdom that can help support brain health and cognitive function. Cordyceps also have nootropic potential and may help improve memory and learning - so this mushroom superfood, like all functional mushrooms, brings a wide variety of benefits to the (coffee) table.
Adding Cordyceps to your coffee each morning can be a great way to jump start your energy levels and give you added support to spring into the day.
Mushroom coffee benefit #3: Immune Defense
Mushrooms are well known for their immune benefits - driven by beta glucan compounds which initiate a cascade of positive immune activity. Mushroom powders that are made from the whole mushroom, including the fruiting bodies and the mycellium (as opposed to extracts alone), also contain prebiotic dietary fiber that acts as a platform for healthy and diverse probiotic growth. Additionally, mushrooms offer high levels of antioxidants, peptides, sterols, triterpenes, vitamins, proteins, and chelated minerals, all of which contribute to immune function.
Mushrooms even contain a unique antioxidant - L-ergothioneine - the only antioxidant that has an active transport mechanism found in the cells of all mammals, helping to deliver the antioxidant to areas of free-radical damage (where your body needs it!)
Does Mushroom Coffee Taste Like Coffee?
We've answered the question, what does mushroom coffee do but how does mushroom coffee taste?
There are a variety of ways you can go about adding mushrooms to your coffee. The first option is to simply stir a scoop of your favorite functional mushroom powder into your morning cup of joe and stir. Although it may not seem like an intuitive combination, mushrooms and coffee have complementary flavor profiles. Adding nut or oat milk, if desired, is a great option to enhance the nutty flavors of both mushrooms and coffee.
The mushroom powder has a fine texture and we do recommend you continue stirring the coffee as you drink it to avoid some of the coffee powder from settling on the bottom.
As a convenient alternative, there are a number of brands that provide mushroom coffee mix. Our Om Mushroom Coffee Blend was designed to be the best tasting mushroom coffee available, with the goal of bringing the amazing benefits of mushroom coffee to mushroom lovers and coffee lovers alike.
The blend features a premium instant coffee that is bold and full-bodied with delicious chocolatey notes. The coffee is a single sourced 100% Arabica bean roast, sustainably harvested in Papua New Guinea. This tasty brew is blended with Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, and Turkey Tail organic mushroom powder, plus a proprietary whole food Reishi mushroom extract that is standardized to 35% Beta Glucans, and Ginkgo biloba for focus. This convenient hot drink mix provides an energy boost, while supporting cognitive performance, and a healthy immune system.
We also offer a Coffee Latte Blend that features organic Arabica coffee packed with organic Lion’s Mane, Reishi, Cordyceps and Chaga superfood mushrooms, plus astragalus, all expertly blended to bring you energy, focus and clarity.
Whether you are already passionate about mushroom supplements, or just getting familiar with them, mushroom coffee is a great way to introduce the health benefits of mushrooms into something you likely already do each day.
Sources:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326379
https://www.webmd.com/vitamins-and-supplements/features/nootropics-smart-drugs-overview
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/nootropics
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4684115/
https://news.umiamihealth.org/en/nootropics-and-smart-drugs-do-they-work/
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lions-mane-mushroom
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24266378/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40816-019-0101-7
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5874985/
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/reishi-mushroom-benefits
https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-602/cordyceps
