Well, we are a group of friends consisting of scientists, entrepreneurs and athletes who decided to imbue our favourite beverage – coffee, with the power of nature. Since we drink coffee every day it seemed like a perfect place to do a small change for the most significant impact in the return.
Significant impact on our performance, and well being is a lot to ask for though, so we had to go deep into the forest and look a bit further, further from kingdom of plants. Solution came from the exciting world of Fungi. Our history of mushroom supplements usage full of success stories, and scientific literature packed with impressive results emphasized it is exactly what we were looking for.
Among different species world of fungi is a home of the little forest creatures with incredible potency a.k.a. superfood mushrooms. Their chemical composition and nutritive value was impaired with anything we analyzed before, but to get to it, proved to be much harder than we hoped for.
THE PROCESS
Unfortunately big part of the important bioactive ingredients of these mushrooms is locked inside mushroom cell walls (the walls are made of Chitin- one of the hardest natural materials on earth that cannot be digested). Consequently, grinding mushrooms in the powder wouldn’t get the job done. In order to unlock all of their potency Chitin needs to be removed by dual-extraction process(heat and alcohol).
This is how we did it:
PROCESS INFOGRAPHIC
(From 1kg of mushroom you get about 50gram of extract)
With all the water and Citin removed, high potency mushroom extract with maximum bioavailability is created and ready to be consumed.
Which mushrooms did we choose and why?
Our focus was on mushroom species high in nutrients essential for making your body more efficient in converting food into energy (on cellular level) and for boosting immune system and cognitive function.
Keeping these effects in mind three mushrooms proudly stood out, providing much more than we initially asked for. Fantastic trio:
Chanterelle
The place we started from, our home Croatia, has beautiful intact forests (Lika and Gorski Kotar) full of wild chanterelles – mushrooms with delicate taste, fantastic aroma and even better chemical composition. They are very rich in vitamin D and have among highest known natural concentrations of B vitamins, which play a fundamental role in converting food into energy, serotonin production and triggering enzymes involved in neurotransmitter synthesis and nerve growth. Wherefore, Chanterelles are indispensable ingredient in every MushroomCup and will help you kickstart your day. Learn more here.
Chaga
The Chaga mushroom is a cocktail of extraordinary complex life-enhancing phytonutrients. It has impressively high ORAC scores which stands for food’s ability to protect against premature aging, age-related memory loss and neutralization of the damage done by free radicals. On top of that chaga gets its distinctive dark color because of its very high melanin content. Melanin is the main pigment present in our skin responsible for its health and keeping it beautiful and supple.
Our Chaga has >30% Beta glucans responsible for boosting your immune system and often prescribed as a remedy to people with allergies and infections. Chaga has a long and successful history with treating cancer and you can learn more about it and other chaga properties here.
Cordyceps
Cordyceps is ancient Tibetan mushroom known for its libido boosting effect 😉 (check the story how it was discovered) It has unique chemical composition that can alter the way you feel and perform. It has been scientifically proven to increases the cellular energy production and oxygen uptake wherefore It is widely used by professional athletes as a natural supplement for keeping their body and brain efficient and energised. Cordyceps is a bidirectional modulator with both potentiating and suppressive effects on the immune system, which means it makes our immune system smarter and adaptable on ongoing treats. You can learn more about cordyceps’ positive effect on respiratory function, sperm survival and count etc here.
Coffee
Parallely with making extracts we tested more than a hundred of different instant coffees from all over the world.
Eventually we found the one everybody was pleased with.
It was delicious, organic coffee from beautiful green Peruvian hills. We learned that the lack of the oxygen on the high altitudes, extends maturing period of this coffee beans gifting the coffee with exceptional quality. Organic, tasty and high quality, it was a no brainer.
Final product
Last step was finding the rations. After 13month long trial period due to the difference in weight, age and metabolic rate, our scientists defined 400 mg of extract, per mushroom, as the amount from which allsubjects benefit, no matter the predispositions.
We were proud and we were ready. Packets of pure happiness were loaded in fully recyclable, reusable tubes and the raise of the GO Sharp and GO Fresh mushrooms coffee could begin.
