The first kingdom to claim our little planet, they arrived over 70 million years before plants and built the foundation for the rest of us. They even share similar DNA to us, taking in oxygen and giving off carbon dioxide. They break down waste, give nutrients back to the soil, and drive forest health improvements.
Wunderground uses adaptogenic mushrooms which are documented in some of the oldest surviving Chinese medical materials. Adaptogenic means that they help with how the body responds to stress, anxiety, and fatigue. Reishi was known as the most superior medicine above all other plants, earning the name "mushroom of immortality". A huge part of Eastern medicine for thousands of years, mushrooms have a pretty impressive track record for overall health, wellness and immunity. The West is just now waking up to this, though to be fair we were pretty distracted by microwave popcorn for a while.
A GUIDE TO
MEDICINAL
MUSHROOM
Mushrooms are more like us than you realize.
But, does it taste good?
We love mushrooms, but we don't necessarily want to taste them in our coffee. We created Wunderground because we refuse to accept the notion that you need to sacrifice taste for benefits. Our goal was to create a delicious coffee that happened to be blended with potent adaptogenic mushrooms. We gotta say, we pretty much nailed it. We started with best-in-class concentrated organic mushroom extracts. We then sourced coffees from origins that had the right flavor profile to melt away the mushroom taste. We fussed about the perfect roast curve to create the most delicious cup.
We obsessed until we got it just right. When you enjoy our products, you just taste incredibly delicious coffee. Oh hey, you're getting all the benefits of mushrooms. Pretty genius, right?
Antioxidants + Adaptogenic Mushrooms = Incredible Combo
People love to drink their coffee as part of a daily ritual. Did you know that humans get most of their antioxidants from coffee? Antioxidants are known to reduce free radicals in your body, which can help lower your odds of getting certain diseases. However, the crash and jitters aren't ideal. Adding adaptogenic mushrooms to the mix keeps your body in balance while supporting focus and calm. Think of mushrooms as a thermostat in our body to regulate stress, cortisol, anxiety and even caffeine. Antioxidants and adaptogens are an incredible match. All the benefits, none of the bummer!
Best in Class Organic Mushrooms
We love all mushrooms, but we chose ours very carefully. To begin, mushrooms are what they eat. We are obsessively picky about where our mushrooms come from and how they are grown. Our organic mushrooms are tested to ensure they're free of the bad stuff - heavy metals, pesticides, and herbicides. Our mushrooms are grown on natural wood substrate, mimicking how they grow in the wild, whereas many commercial adaptogenic mushrooms are grown on rice, grain or other non-wood substrate and ground up along with that grain (gross). We only use the fruiting body of the mushroom (the cap and stem), never the roots or mycelium which have lower amounts of the beneficial compounds we want to enhance.
Our mushrooms are adaptogens!
What is an adaptogen and how do adaptogens work-a plant or mushroom that helps the body adapt to stress and to exert a normalizing effect upon bodily processes.
Why are adaptogens important?
Many of us are inundated with so many different stressors. Emotional, physical and mental stress. The baby up all night crying, daily commutes to work, financial difficulty, relationship issues, stress from poor food or excess caffeine or sugar, environmental stress. Stress from social media... it all adds up. And people begin to feel daily fatigue, brain fog, difficulty sleeping... all this creates an increased need for more caffeine to get us through the day!
Adaptogens may not give you that initial jolt of energy that caffeine (or sugar) might provide. Instead, adaptogens are working behind the scenes to ensure a balanced, healthy functioning body-without the jitters! It's called homeostasis, and it's a beautiful combination with the brain-boosting. antioxidant rich cup of coffee!
Mushrooms are True Tonics
Many of these mushrooms work best as a tonic, meaning as part of your daily routine, and not necessarily for an acute illness.
They contain beneficial polysaccharides, known as beta-glucans and most contain beneficial triterpenes as well. Each medicinal mushroom has a different set of actions in the body. Most are potent antioxidants, adaptogens, balance the body and the immune system.
Tonics will build, strengthen and nourish the tissues of the body, therefore helping to restore tone and function, and therefore supporting overall health.
Upon daily consumption, the adaptogens have begun to work their magic and the body is beginning to become balanced. So why are these functional mushrooms so popular? Because people truly want to FEEL better! They want to feel good about the delicious cup of coffee they're already consuming every day (or even a few times a day)!
Magical (but not Magic) mushrooms
So what are medicinal (or adaptogenic) mushrooms?
Sometimes people ask us if our mushrooms are the psychedelic (or magic) kind. They're not! But we think they're pretty magical nonetheless. Medicinal mush- rooms (sometimes called functional or adaptogenic) support overall wellness including brain function, immunity, and emotional calm and well-being. Each medicinal mushroom has a different positive effect. Most are potent antioxidants and create homeostasis, or balance, in our body, mind and immune system. Yay!
We are Wunderground, nice to meet you
Wunderground makes the world's most delicious mushroom coffees and tea.
Created with efficacious, organic adaptogenic mushrooms, our products are crafted to inspire moments of Wunder from day to night.
The world's new normal asks us to carry an unbearable weight of stress and worry, and we wanted to create something that helps to ease that burden.
At its core coffee is connection, and these days we need it more than ever.
From the bottom of our hearts, we are so grateful you are here.
