Easy to Follow Step-By-Step Guide, Dosing Suggestions, & Benefits
As culinary have become mainstream, many have been discovering the benefits of their use. Much of their benefits stem around mental health. Mushrooms have been used for centuries* and possibly for millenia, yet it is only recently that their benefits have been closely studied. Mushrooms have been used to help manage anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other mental health issues.
So why would someone choose to drink a mushroom tea rather than just eating the dried mushrooms. Well, there are a few reasons. For one, taste. If you have never eaten dried mushrooms, many find them to be pretty nasty tasting. They are a bit hard to chew and leave bits in your mouth and the taste is not great the whole time. Mushroom tea not only does not taste bad, but you can add flavors you enjoy and make a good tasting cup of tea.
When ingesting mushrooms via tea rather than eating them, the onset of the effects is much quicker. You will most likely begin to feel the effects within 30 minutes rather than waiting the 1.5 hours that dried mushrooms need to take effect. Not only that, but the effects do not last as long as with dried mushrooms. The effects felt from mushroom tea usually subside in about 4 hours compared to the 8+ hours when eating dried mushrooms
Learning how to make mushroom tea is not much different than making a standard cup of tea. It involves steeping your ingredients in water to extract the flavors and active molecules. To create your very own mushroom tea, you will need dried mushrooms, a clean herb grinder, a lemon slice or two, some water, a heating element, 2 mugs, a fine kitchen strainer, and whatever additions you want to add (like honey, ginger, or a regular tea bag).
To begin the process of how to make mushroom tea, grind your mushrooms into a coarse powder. Be careful not to overgrind as this will make straining difficult. Take your ground mushrooms and add them to your first mug. Now, squeeze a slice of lemon over the mushrooms.
If you are using more than 3.5 grams, you may consider 2 lemon slices. Next, pour enough room temperature water over the mushrooms to fully submerge them. This will allow the lemon acid to mix with the water and interact with all of the mushrooms, thereby extracting the active molecules. Let this mixture sit for 15 minutes. In the meantime, move onto the next step.
Use your 2nd mug to steep your flavor additions of a bag of tea just like brewing any other cup of tea by pouring boiling water over the ingredients. Once you have your mug of tea and your mushroom mug has been sitting for 15 minutes, it is time to combine the two.
Pour your mushroom water through a very fine strainer and into the 2nd mug containing your tea. The goal here is to remove the little bits of dried mushrooms. Once combined, you are ready to drink that delicious mushroom tea! If you want to save it for later, place it in an airtight container and leave it in the refrigerator. It will stay good for about 2 weeks.
