For hundreds of years, mushroom cultivators in China have been producing some of the most potent medicinal mushrooms worldwide. Traditional Chinese medicine has guided this development for over 2,000 years, with techniques being refined to such an extent that cultivated mushrooms are now in no way inferior to their wildcrafted predecessors. Our shaggy ink cap mushrooms are sourced directly from the globally-recognised mushroom-growing region of Gutian County in Fujian. Our farming partner places a high value on natural, traditional cultivation methods which do not include the use of pesticides or synthetic fertilisers. The mushrooms are selectively harvested by hand between July and October, at their peak nutritional value.
Mushrooms are composed of the fruiting body, which typically appears above ground, and the mycelium underneath. The most important compounds in medicinal mushrooms are concentrated within the fruiting body, but due to mycelia being faster and easier to cultivate, products derived from the mycelium are common despite being of lesser value. Our mushroom powders and extracts are exclusively made from the entire fruiting body (including the stalk), preserving the valuable compounds in each mushroom.
The polysaccharides contained in medicinal mushrooms, particularly (1-3)-β-d-glucan and (1-6)-β-d-glucan, are some of their most prized ingredients. Our mushroom extracts retain these compounds through the traditional extraction which uses only water and food grade ethanol. The resulting concentrate is highly potent; a pure and wholesome extract with absolutely no toxic extraction residues or chemical release agents (such as acetone, n-hexane or methanol).
In contrast to extracts, which can lose some of their nutritional value during processing, powders contain the full spectrum of nutrients and enzymes for a particularly strong adaptogenic effect. To ensure that the nutrients of the mushroom are optimally available to the body, we finely mill the dried mushrooms to a size of less than 0.1mm, according to the "shell-broken" method. This milling process breaks open the difficult-to-digest cells of the mushroom and makes their contents directly bioavailable.
