Chaga
ALSO AVAILABLE:
wildcrafted, dried, and same price as chaga
maitake (Grifola frondosa)
reishi (ling chi, Ganoderma tsugae)
artist conk (Ganoderma applanatum)
turkey tails (kawaratake, yun-zhi, Tramates versicolor)
cracked cap polypore (Phellinus rimosus/robineae**)
**used like Phellinus linteus, a.k.a., meshimakobu, song gen, sanghwang)
Chaga is the Russian name for a hard fungal wood rot (technically not a mushroom) that you brew to make a drink resembling black tea or mocha coffee (without the caffeine). With milk or cream, chaga is somewhat mocha-flavored. Cookbook author Kim Hendrickson has made chaga ganache truffles with it and I've made "chagalot" ice cream. Friends have used chaga to make a tasty porter-like beer.
"Irina invites you to a cup of chaga tea"
Like many fungi, chaga is both flavorful and highly medicinal. If you grind the chaga (and not everyone bothers to do so), try using one to two times what you'd use for coffee, i.e., half a cup per quart. Many sources recommend a ratio of 1:5 chaga to water by weight, but by my calculations this would mean using up to two cups of ground chaga per quart! In any case, you can use chaga grounds at least twice.
Chaga is mostly known from Siberia but can also be found at high elevations in the Appalachian mountains. It grows on birch trees, where apparently it absorbs and concentrates the immune compounds the tree sends to fight this infection. Chaga is apparently extremely rich in antioxidants, although frequent claims that it has by far the highest amount of any food on earth are, to my knowledge, unsubstantiated. Still, plenty of studies testify to its anti-cancer benefits. One customer has successfully treated her dog with it. Chaga also protects against radiation, lowers blood pressure, boosts the immune system, nourishes the liver, and helps with hypoglycemia, and more. These are just it's scientifically-proven effects.
Many commercial sites say to treat chaga like miso and don't boil it, just steep it in boiled water, because boiling destroys important compounds such as enzymes. On the other hand, most herbalists recommend simmering all mushrooms to free up the polysaccharides, though I have heard that a "hard boil" can actually damage them. As far as I know, if this is true it should apply to the mycelium as well (which is what chaga is; more on that below).
chaga I've gathered
Whether a percolator counts as a hard boil I don't know, but I have managed to find one authoritative source saying chaga should not be heated above 122ºF. That same source says the medicine is mainly in chaga's water-soluble pigments, It does seem like it doesn't take much to extract the color and flavor at least, especially once chaga is finely ground. It's hard to imagine that people haven't traditionally just boiled chaga for hot tea, and 122º is very warm, not hot (stick your finger in it to tell). But what's traditional isn't always best. The best approach may be to use the chaga twice unboiled and then to simmer it to get out what's left.
Chaga is a tonic, a "nutraceutical" food like garlic. Still, too much of anything is not good for you. It is possible, though unlikely, to "overdose" on chaga over time (see above link for details).
Unlike most mushrooms, chaga takes many years to grow. That might mean there's more environmental impact from harvesting it. But keep in mind that chaga is not a mushroom. It's a canker rot, the product of a parasite that eventually kills the tree and itself. Mushrooms are the "fruit" of fungi in that they are the way fungi spread their "seeds," i.e., their spores. Chaga, on the other hand, is the herniated mycelium, i.e., the body of the fungus itself popping out of the tree, along with the heartwood its been eating. Not that any of this answers whether it's better for the earth to harvest chaga or to leave it alone. I think the best policy is just to try and make the most of the chaga you use.
me and chaga on The Bizarre Food show
(about 2/3 into the segment)
What's instructive about the above discussions (how to prepare chaga medicinally and how to harvest it sustainably) is that we often try to do the right thing, but we're making decisions with incomplete or inaccurate information. This is why I advocate being guided by intuition (see my book and articles here).
Some people use only the inner part of the chaga, but judging from this study, the black outer "crust" is worth using as well. In any case, you will not be able to remove it from this chaga as I have already broken it up into pieces. That also means you will not be able to grate this chaga by hand.
Finely ground, each pound is about half a gallon in volume.
Prices
All dried:
- $40/# in two to three-inch chunks
- $50/# in small chunks (ready to be ground in a Vitamix, etc)
- $60/# powdered (ready to use)
- +$5 shipping for one pound or $10 for two or more pounds (for U.S. orders only).
Thanks a lot! The first pound lasted a long time. Since I started my dog on chaga and another alternative drug called LDN, her cysts have dramatically reduced in size and are not even noticeable now. She also had a small hard cyst on one ear which is now completely gone. I don't know if it's the chaga or the LDN or the combination of the two, but I am going to continue to give her both. She loves the taste of chaga tea and thinks it's a treat!
I have told a lot of people about you and the benefits of chaga. Thanks again!
C.S.