8 of the Best Mushroom Coffees for Your Wellness Routine

Mushroom coffee is taking off, and for great reasons. Considering adding a shroom java to your morning routine? We’ve compiled some recommendations for brands worth considering over your typical cup of joe.

What is mushroom coffee?

Mushroom coffee is a beverage made by mixing either pre-ground coffee beans or freshly brewed coffee with dried mushroom powder.

Companies use many different functional mushrooms to impart unique benefits to coffee, like chaga, maitake, cordyceps, shiitake, lion’s mane, turkey tail mushrooms, and reishi mushrooms.

Mushroom coffee is becoming increasingly popular for its potential health benefits, including extended energy, immune-boosting effects, added focus, and reduced stress and inflammation (1). It can even reduce the side effects of caffeine since there is often lower concentration in these combinations.

The health benefits of mushroom coffee

Mushroom coffee is an excellent coffee alternative as it typically contains the same base ingredient: java!

Each beverage contains health-boosting antioxidants, though caffeine content varies. Some blends are even caffeine-free!

However, adding functional mushrooms to your morning ritual will provide additional benefits while reducing the amount of caffeine you consume daily.

Of course, this depends on the shrooms used.

The mushrooms you’ll see added to coffee are considered adaptogens, or natural substances that can help your body deal with stress and balance the nervous system. This is because they contain biochemical compounds like beta-glucans, which have shown positive medicinal effects on blood pressure, immune health, and anti-inflammatory properties. 

Some species of adaptogenic mushrooms, like lion’s mane, have been linked to improved cognitive function and sustained energy levels throughout the day.

While continued research is necessary to back the benefits, medicinal mushroom added to coffee earns these drinks considered as a superfood supplement.

The best mushroom coffee brands

Some companies offer single-serving instant coffee packs. Others sell preground bags of beans mixed in various concentrations with a forest of mushroom varieties. Some even add additional supplements, herbs, roots, and plants with outsized adaptogenic horizons. It’s a great time to be a mushroom coffee drinker.

Four Sigmatic Mushroom Coffee

Image Source: Four Sigmatic

Odds are, you’ve probably heard about Four Sigmatic, either from a brief “mushroom coffee” Google search or perhaps through Joe Rogan’s endorsements. Nonetheless, Four Sigmatic is the leader of the mushroom coffee trend and even claims that chaga mushroom coffee originated in its home country of Finland. They offer different lines of their coffee with specified benefits like Think, Perform, Chill, and Balance, each with a unique blend of shrooms and different grinds for making cold brews or whipping into a latte. 

Taste: The taste of Four Sigmatic’s various coffees is on par with some of the higher-quality roasts you’ll find in stores. The dark roast is smooth and balanced, while the medium has chocolatey, buttery notes.

Quality: Four Sigmatic’s coffee is single origin and fair trade certified. Various shrooms, from cordyceps to chaga or reishi mushrooms, are precisely lab tested for concentration and potency. It uses 100% fruiting bodies, which are naturally grown.

Price: $12 to $50, depending on selection and size.

MUD\WTR Coffee Alternative

Image Source: MUD\WTR

If you’re looking for a daily energy boost without the jitters or crash of caffeine, MUD\WTR might be a good alternative for those looking to ditch their coffee habit. Mud/Wtr offers several products with little to no caffeine, containing different functional fungi paired with herbs, spices, or other adaptogenic plants.

Taste: Though it’s not your typical cup of coffee, MUD\WTR still packs a punch with its flavor. The caffeine content (35 milligrams) comes from black tea, which gives the drink a leafy, herbaceous note. With a variety of different flavors to choose from, like warming chai spices, cacao, musky turmeric, and matcha, Mud/Wtr has a layered taste that’s not totally unlike your favorite java, despite being devoid of coffee.

Quality: The coffee alternative boasts 562 milligrams of California-grown shrooms per serving, and they’re certified organic. However, Mud/Wtr is best categorized as a “full-spectrum” product, meaning they use mycelium, thus substrate, as well as the fruiting body.

According to the company, they have a process that facilitates full digestion of the oat substrate, ensuring that they’re not grinding loads of carbohydrates into the blend and calling it a mushroom product. We’ll leave you to make your own call about that, as some others in the Mud community have.

Price: Thirty servings for $60, though MUD is known to run a few sales.

RYZE Mushroom Coffee

Image Source: RYZE

RYZE promises a drink with half the caffeine of regular coffee and all the amazing benefits of multi-faceted ingredients. Rather than offering a full slate of products, RYZE is currently focused on a single mushroom extract mix.

Taste: RYZE is a good product to try if you’re looking for a beverage with a unique flavor profile. This coffee definitely isn’t your normal roasty, toasty coffee flavor. Instead, things get a little more earthy – truly embracing the flavor complexities of mushrooms. Though the taste might not be for everyone, many prefer its smooth-bodied finish.

Quality: RYZE stocks its powder with California-grown mushrooms that offer a hefty potency of 2,000 milligrams per serving. Ingredients are 100% certified organic and include common medicinal mushrooms like cordyceps, lion’s mane, and reishi — but also shiitake and king trumpets as well – two varieties unique to mushroom café blends. This mushroom-packed combo may be the culprit ingredients behind RYZE’s distinct flavor.

Price: Sixty servings go for $55 but only through a monthly subscription.

Wunderground

Image Source: Wunderground

Wunderground offers several options for all of your adaptogenic coffee needs. It categorizes its various mushroom coffee offerings by benefit. Super Immunity is a mix of mushrooms linked to boosting your body’s defense, while the Brainchild boasts a concoction of fungi purported for focus. Hocus Pocus works magic on your gut health, and there are several other specified blends to cover all aspects of your well-being.

Taste: Fortunately for Wunderground, this is more than just a company with good branding. The various options of joe, whether instant, ground, or whole beans (mushroomless), offer a skilled roast from the country’s coffee capital, Seattle.

True to form, different coffees exude various flavor traits. Each blend has subtle flavors for the true coffee lover to appreciate. The Hocus Pocus roast has notes of orange and pecan, while the Brainchild is more crackers and berries.

Quality: Wunderground relies on whole fruiting bodies in its coffee. It contains the usual line-up of reishi, chaga, cordyceps, and lion’s mane, though the first two are dual extracted, while the latter two fungi are single extracts derived from hot water. You can expect a 15:1 concentration of reishi/chaga and an 8:1 concentration of cordyceps/lion’s mane.

Price: A 12-ounce bag runs for $22 and 20% off with subscriptions. You can purchase in bundles for $40.

Velty Uncaffeinated Coffee

Image Source: Velty

There are a lot of low-caf shroom café products but much fewer decaf ones. Meet Velty. This company is relatively new, but its “decaf” approach is so intuitive that it seems to have been around forever. Good coffee doesn’t have to mean jitters. Mushroom coffee from Velty comes in two flavors and styles for each (single-serve packets or multi-serving pouches).

Taste: Reviewers of Velty report that the mushroom coffee, which uses reishi and lion’s mane, has a unique taste. The Spiced line has a mix of herbal ingredients that add complexity to the flavor of coffee; think earthy, caramelly mesquite, and the aromatic spice of ginger and cinnamon reminiscent of chai. The plain coffee flavor takes on a classic espresso’s rich characteristics.

Quality: Velty’s coffee comes from women-led farms in Mexico and Colombia, while the herbs and spices are also ethically sourced. Unfortunately, Velty’s focus seems primarily focused on the coffee side of its product, and we can’t verify whether they use full-spectrum or fruiting body extractions.

Price: Eight single-serve pouches cost $28, or twenty-one serving pouches for $55.

Alpine Start

Image Source: Alpine Start

In contrast to Velty, Alpine Start isn’t intended for those looking for less caffeine. The instant coffee boasts 110 milligrams, which is a full 15 more than traditional cups of coffee. This coffee is undoubtedly a potent boost to start the day.

Taste: Unlike many other products in this category, Alpine Start isn’t a black coffee. Instead, it features instant mushroom coffee with ground reishi and lion’s mane — but also has a plant-based creamer mixed in.

The result is an exceptionally smooth flavor and full, creamy mouth-feel that is low in acidity. A bit of hot water is all you need for a fully balanced and rich cup of joe.

Quality: The fungi at work in Alpine Start are organically grown and third-party tested for a confirmed 70% level of beta-glucans extract. Along with the Mexican-grown arabica beans, the non-dairy creamer gives a tasty lift to this mushroom coffee; coconut-based MCTs provide clean and clear energy for your body.

Price: A 6.7-ounce pack of twelve servings goes for $19.99.

FreshCap

Image Source: FreshCap

Oddly enough, FreshCap sells various mushroom beverages on its website, but the company’s mushroom coffee blend packs are only available on Amazon. Still, you can trust a product from the self-proclaimed “mushroom nerds” to be packed with wellness benefits.

Taste: FreshCap’s instant coffee centers on lion’s mane and chaga mushrooms paired with ashwagandha. The African shrub, known to decrease blood sugar, brings a distinct nuttiness to the mix, which is complemented by the ambiently sweetened vanilla notes of chaga mushrooms. 

Quality: High quality is crucial to FreshCap, and the company prioritizes premium-grown, full-fruiting body fungi in its blend of mushrooms. The shrooms are third-party tested for quality, with adaptogen content and potency printed directly onto its products. Generational family farms in traditional mushroom-rich regions of China and Russia produce fungi for FreshCap’s organic mushroom coffee.

Price: $22.50 for fifteen servings.

Laird Superfood 

Image Source: Laird Superfood

If there is one mushroom morning cup that will be closest to your traditional coffee, it’s Laird Superfood. The company specializes in a few functional powders of all kinds, but the various mushroom-centric blends put as much emphasis on the quality of coffee beans as it does on the benefits of fungi.

Laird is the bag for you if you want to swap the instant packets with a French press.

Taste: According to reviewers, this one has a superior flavor identical to regular coffee taste, without many noticeable notes from the mushrooms. In some blends, an unobtrusive taste might make you question whether there are actually any shrooms in the mix, but with Laird, that isn’t an issue. Here, the shroomy taste merges harmoniously with the ground coffee. The company sells two options — a medium or dark roast — as well as single-serve K-cups.

Quality: Laird uses Peruvian-grown arabica coffee, grown at high-altitude and picked and harvested at peak quality. The mushrooms (an array of cordyceps, chaga, and lion’s mane mushrooms) are certified organic, making this an all-around top-notch product to add to your morning or afternoon routine. 

The one downside to Laird is that the company doesn’t commit to using 100% fruiting bodies in its mushroom coffee products, which means blends may include mycelium and, thus, ground-up substrate too. 

Price: Bagged coffee: $17.95 for a 12-ounce bag or $99 for six-bag bulk orders.  

K-Cups: $17.95 for 12-count or $107 for 72-count. 

A mushroom coffee for every need

Whether you’re seeking a low-caffeine coffee replacement or a morning cup with more health benefits, there’s a mushroom coffee out there for everyone. We can’t think of an easier way to incorporate the power of mushrooms into your daily routine. Try swapping your usual cup of joe with one of these adaptogenic brands for that extra boost you’ve been looking for!

References

1.) Sabaratnam, Vikineswary, Wong Kah-Hui, Murali Naidu, and Pamela Rosie David. 2013. “Neuronal Health – Can Culinary and Medicinal Mushrooms Help?” Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine 3 (1): 62–68. https://doi.org/10.4103/2225-4110.106549.