A review of Mushroom Cups organic coffee
by James Eflin
I enjoy mushrooms in my daily diet; I am not a mycologist nor what you might call an avid mushroom fanatic. I’ve never used mushrooms to alter my mental state (unless that’s what I get from using them in stir fry concoctions for dinner). My preferences trend toward the earthy tastes that I get from Shiitake mushrooms or similar, but ‘similar’ can be fairly pricey (like Enoki) and difficult to find in my local grocery stores. When they’re in season, and when I can find them, I enjoy getting locally-grown (that is, locally-harvested) Morels. I tried my hand, once, at growing my own mushrooms using a kit that I bought online, but it produced a failure. I’ll try again, sometimes, and perhaps make use of my basement that has just the right conditions. A puffball mushroom grew in my yard for a few years, but I didn’t know that it was edible or a delicacy and I mowed it over; it hasn’t sprouted back in recent years, but I wish it would so that I could slice it and pan fry to include with a good hamburger and a suitable cheese covering. If I were physically fit, I would explore the local woods and forage on my own. I enjoyed reading about the art of harvesting fungi in Michael Pollan’s 'The Omnivore’s Dilemma'; about the recent proliferation of death-cap mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest by Craig Childs in The Atlantic; the use of deadly Psylocibin mushrooms in crime genre novels such as Nevada Barr’s 'Destroyer Angel' or Ellen King Rice’s 'EvoAngel' or 'Undergrowth' (where, yes, the bad guys get the shaft via mushrooms). Dark, dank reads that make you want to go tramp around the fern-covered Douglas Fir woods in the Pacific Northwest to find fungi. I’m told that I could do this in Indiana or all over Appalachia. But the best read of all is 'The Mushroom at the End of the World,' by anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, in which she explores the supply chain of Matsutake mushrooms that are a lusted-after delicacy of Japan, but now supplied in great quantity through an intricate chain of harvesters and up-cain suppliers, originating with the day-laborers she interviews in mushroom camps throughout the Cascades. Fascinating stuff! But, I never thought I’d be drinking a brewed beverage made with mushrooms.
So, when I saw an advertisement pop up on Facebook, I bought a tub of instant coffee from Mushroom Cups, a purveyor of fine mushroom-infused instant coffee. I just brewed a cup, and found it simple to prepare: boil water, open the packet, empty its contents into a cup, and pour the boiling water over. Let it sit for a few moments while I watch the rich foam that gathers on the top, looking every bit as good as what my local barrista might fix for my rare indulgence at a café. Sitting back, I smell the aroma, vaguely reminiscent of the odd cups of instant coffee I’ve had on camping trips in the Rocky Mountains. Not unpleasant; just not what I want in a cup of coffee brewed on a grey day during pandemic, awaiting some hope of brightness in our dismal world. I sip the coffee, wondering where the beans were grown and inhale the aroma as the flavor hits my tongue. Immediately, my thoughts are of fungi, and I imagine reading Merlin Sheldrake’s 'Entangled Life: How fungi make out world, change our minds and shape our future.' I envision searching through leaf matter collecting on the ground under trees in a grove along a hillside somewhere in Croatia, inhaling the musty smell of the woods and particularly of the earthy and elusive mushrooms that go into my cupajo. I am not prepared for the vistas of Roman ruins that are part of the rich landscape of Solin.
Croatia is where Mushroom Cups produce their products. Solin, to be precise. I envision Solin to be surrounded by dank woods on the hills around many valleys, where Chanterelle mushrooms and others that are featured in their products are foraged by professional harvesters. My cup is their Go Glow! variety that includes Chanterelle and Chaga. The packet does not tell me that the coffee used for the powder comes from Peru, in the Cajamarca coffee-growing region; I had to find that information on their website at https://us.mushroomcups.com/ which provides nice information about their products (as you would imagine) and also gives further information about the nutrition characteristics of the various mushrooms they infuse. I would like to learn more about the process they use to infuse the mushroom extracts, and wish that their website provided that.
Given that my purpose for drinking coffee is to enjoy the flavor, I elevate that to the highest criterion for my selection of coffee to prepare. Mushroom Cups is not produced for that singularity: the mushroom infusions are meant to provide healthy attributes that they want you to prioritize over the flavor of coffee by itself. For that reason, and mainly because of the price, I probably won’t be rushing to make other purchases of their product. But, I ...
