Premium Wild-Harvested Chaga Mushrooms for Tea, Broth, and More
Sustainably wild-harvested from the birch forests of Northern Canada, our premium chaga mushrooms are a versatile ingredient that brings earthy depth and complexity to your kitchen. These wild foraged, non-GMO mushrooms are carefully dehydrated to preserve flavor and nutrients and cut into convenient chunks.
Perfect for the health-conscious and adventurous cooks alike, our chaga mushrooms are a pantry essential for adding rich, coffee-like undertones and bold character to comforting drinks and both sweet and savory dishes. Stored properly, they’ll remain fresh and shelf-stable for a year or more, ensuring you can enjoy their versatility whenever inspiration strikes.
What to do with chaga mushrooms?
Chaga mushroom facts
How to make Chaga tea
Many people turn to chaga for a daily dose of antioxidants but the deep, earthy flavor should not be underestimated. Simmer chunks of chaga in water to create a tea for sipping or a broth for adding to soups, stews, and more. To create a concentrate, simmer to reduce further.
The chaga concentrate can be used to make a coffee replacement or added to lattes, smoothies, hot cocoa, risottos, pasta sauces, desserts, or even mixed with oil and seasonings to create a marinade for steaks, chicken, and veggies.
Chaga pairs beautifully with chocolate (add it to cake or fudgy brownies), vanilla (It actually contains the vanillin—the same compound found in vanilla beans), a wide variety of warming spices
- Origin - Wild-harvested from Birch trees in Northern Canada
- Appearance - Chaga is a hard-bodied conk mushroom that grows on the trunks of birch trees. From a distance, they might look like a burl or blister on the tree, with a dark brownish to black exterior. Cut into one of these birch conks and you'll find hard, yet rubbery, golden-brown flesh.
- Seasonality - Chaga mushrooms thrive in cold climates in the Northern Hemisphere year-round, but they primarily flourish in the winter months.
- Other common names - Inonotus obliquus, birch conk, cinder conk, clinker polypore, canker ploypore.
- Storage - Unopened, your mushrooms will be shelf-stable for a year or more. Once opened, place the mushrooms in an air tight container in cooler temperature such as your fridge at temperatures of 38-40 degrees with low moisture levels for best results.
One of the most popular uses for chaga mushrooms is to brew it into an earthy, homeopathic tea. Technically, it isn't a tea due to the lack of tea leaves; it is decoction. This chaga decoction is brewed far longer than any tea or tisane, which results in a deeply flavored infusion.
Chaga can be bitter, so you may want to infuse it alongside cinnamon sticks, cloves, or cardamom. It also pairs beautifully with a bit of maple syrup or honey.
Chaga tea recipe:
Simmer 1/4 ounce of chaga and 20 ounces of water for about 45 minutes. Add the whole spices like cinnamon sticks, cloves, and cardamom to the water during the simmering process, if desired. Once fully brewed, stir in honey or your desired sweetener, and enjoy.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Chaga mushrooms are a type of conk mushroom or “shelf” mushroom known for being rich in antioxidants. Chaga, or Inonotus obliquus, have a dark brown to black exterior with gold to orange interior flesh , They primarily grow on birch trees in cold-weather climates in the northern hemisphere.
- Chaga chunks can be simmered in water for about 30 minutes to an hour to make a tea or coffee replacement or a broth. To make a concentrate to be used in other applications, brew it even longer to reduce. Chaga can also be used to make an extract—simply place your chaga pieces in a jar and submerge in alcohol. Seal the jar and keep it in a cool, dark location and leave it for 2-3 months, shaking daily..
- Yes, the same vanillin compound that gives vanilla beans their distinctive flavor is also found in chaga.
- Yes, you can use the same chunks of chaga to brew multiple 2-3 batches of tea. Your tea should be dark brown when brewed, so if that isn’t happening, your chaga has been spent. Freeze the used chaga chunks between uses
- Chaga is unlike anything you’ve ever tasted—bitter and earthy, with subtle hints of vanilla. It is a phenomenal replacement or addition to coffee and tea and pairs beautifully with cinnamon, cardamom, chocolate, maple, honey, turmeric, and citrus
- Unopened, chaga mushrooms are shelf-stable for a year to 18 months. Once opened, store them in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. For optimal freshness, keep them in the fridge at 38–40°F with low humidity.
- Yes, dried chaga chunks can be ground into powder using a coffee grinder or food processor. The powder can then be used to brew tea or incorporated into recipes. However, we prefer using chaga pieces for making teas, broths, and concentrates because we don’t want the powder to settle. Additionally, since the chaga chunks can be brewed multiple times, using powder in those applications could be wasteful.