Press

"In the words of the prophet Taylor Swift, I need to calm down. And according to the latest in wellness trends, it’s adaptogenic mushrooms that I need. The adaptogenic fungi—not to be confused with the hallucinatory sort, but heck, maybe I need those too—are types like reishi, lion’s mane, cordyceps, and chaga, and ingesting them is believed by many to help our bodies adapt to stress and relax.

I want to better adapt to stress and relax and eat and drink delicious things. That’s why I’m happy to see so many new grocery store products touting adaptogens as key ingredients. Obviously, fungi aren’t anything new, but finding ‘shrooms in everything from chocolate to oatmeal to sparkling water is.  Many of these products are made right here in Colorado, and so, in an attempt to calm down and better handle the stresses of single parenting, work, family drama, and oh yeah, a continuous global pandemic, I decided to taste drive five local adaptogenic mushroom products. 

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Packed with Life ImmuneATea

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It’s possible that my morning coffee habit is contributing to the manic anxiety that kicks in around 9:30 a.m. each day. This tea—made in Nevada by Boulder-owned company Packed with Life—is infused with dried and chopped lion’s mane, reishi, cordyceps, and chaga mushrooms, along with 12 organic herbs, and it tastes like a good, sightly ginger-y, slightly earthy tea. It’s supposed to be a decaf source of energy, and if I can get energy without the manic anxiety, I’m in.  De-stressability: On one of the days I drank this tea in the morning, I actually skipped my usual afternoon coffee. My daily lunchtime ritual didn’t even sound appealing. Call it a coincidence or call it the mushrooms, but I call it a miracle."