The difference between a regular tea and a good one is the same as the difference between anything you make with your hands: it’s all about the attention you devote. Everyone knows that cooking with love means better dishes! When you put love in what you do, your efforts will always garner great results.

This being said, the second most important thing is using good quality ingredients – and magic mushrooms are no exception: use only the best dried mushrooms available. Select the black or herbal tea of your choice of course, but steer clear of caffeinated tea. Caffeine in tea has the same effect as it does in coffee, so it could make you restless. The presence of uppers adds nothing to the psychedelic experience, apart from possible discomfort on both a physical and emotional level.

You’ll find step by step instructions in the second half of this article. First though, let’s look at the most frequently asked questions on this mode of consumption so you can figure out whether or not mushroom tea is right for you.

Will the mushrooms lose their strength?

The most recurring question about this recipe is this: will the mushrooms lose potency if placed in boiling water? Yes, they’ll lose a little strength if you put them in boiling water, i.e. 100°C. At this temperature, the less stable psilocin deteriorates straight away – psilocybin is more resistant, but in the cup infused with the teabag the temperature dwindles quickly enough to numbers less destructive to the active substances. Although the procedure you’ll find described here is designed to safeguard the mushrooms’ power as much as possible, you do lose something, but (as the experience of many users demonstrates) the difference is completely imperceptible. As a matter of fact, you gain something in flavour – and the reduction in nausea is a good bonus too. If you’re someone who finds the flavour of mushrooms hard to stomach, or who feels nauseous easily, tea is a solution to consider.

Should I throw out the mushroom powder after preparation?

Another question regarding ground mushrooms which remains after their preparation is this: throw them away, or eat them? Making tea makes sense as a way to avoid eating the mushrooms, as the time they sit in your stomach before becoming effective is the period in which you risk nausea. So if nausea is what you’re trying to avoid, you can throw them away without a second thought. There will be very little of use left in them anyway.

I only have a few mushrooms. Will the tea be worth it?

If you only have a few mushrooms at your disposal though and they’re sufficient to give the effect you desire, I’d suggest another method: Lemon Tek. Summarised, the instructions are as follows: finely grind the mushrooms; put them in plenty of freshly squeezed lemon juice; mix well; wait 25 minutes max, and ingest. The lemon will cover the mushroom taste somewhat, but more importantly accelerate the rise of the effect and in doing so reduce the timespan in which you might feel sick. Personally, this is my preferred method, but the taste of this mushroom and lemon concoction is objectively better than the taste of dry mushrooms on their own. Moreover, it being in a liquid form is advantageous as you can swallow it down much faster. The longer you have to chew, the longer you have to taste.

How you drink it alters the effect

Let’s get back to tea. If you drink it slowly, taking your time before finishing it, you’ll experience a slow, steady come up. Conversely, if you drink it in a hurry the rise will be decidedly quicker. A very speedy come up, which starts at around 5-10 minutes tops and reaches its peak much more rapidly could scare some people. Some people love a quick start, others don’t. Either way, it’s good to know beforehand and sip slowly.

Some people maintain that tea produces a much shorter trip, but many more deny this claim. Perhaps it’s merely a subjective psychological reaction; as an individual, you’ll only know for sure if you try it. I believe that the material of the fungus tends to prolong the duration of the trip, the release of the active ingredients taking place slower. If you cut up the mushrooms and eat only the active ingredients, it makes sense that it can last not quite as long, but let me repeat: there is no sure fire rule for everyone. Even me personally, I can experience many different variables with the same dose.

The tea and the first time

Tea is also a method of interest for those taking mushrooms for the first time. Here are a few things to keep in mind though: do not exceed the gram and a half limit (never!), and drink slowly; ideally, you must take 20-30 minutes to finish it too, allowing the effect to come up progressively and reducing the risk of nausea to a minimum (or even ruling out sickness altogether). If this is your first time, it’s best to enter the magic world of mushrooms incrementally. If you take the “right” quantity and the effect still rises a little faster than expected, that alone could be scary. It might go that way, and it might not. Just remember you’re not racing anyone – there’s always time for future experience which will help you understand, bit by bit, how mushrooms work with your system.

And now, here’s the recipe you’ll need for an optimal magic mushroom tea.

Necessary Ingredients

• 3.5g of dry psilocybe cubensis mushrooms
• 2 cups of water (around 350-400ml in total)
• 2 teabags of (good quality, decaffeinated) tea or herbal tea. (choose something which combines nicely with the flavour of ginger as well as the eventual lemon juice)
• 1 spoon of honey
• A few pieces of ginger (this will reduce the chance of nausea even further, and help to cover the mushroom taste)
• Lemon juice (optional, but very much advised. This covers the flavour of the mushrooms and, theoretically, accelerate the speed at which the active ingredients can get to work)

Equipment

• 1 kettle or saucepan
• A big enough bowl to prepare everything
• A coffee grinder, a pestle and mortar, or even just a knife and chopping board to break up the dry mushrooms
• A coffee filter or fine mesh filter which allows you to squeeze the mushrooms left in the infusion
• Your favourite mug which holds a good amount of liquid, or a teapot to pour the tea out of into whatever receptacle you want to drink from

Preparation

1. Reduce the mushrooms to tiny pieces with a coffee grinder. There’s no need to turn them into a powder, remember. (This way, you’ll increase the surface area of the mushrooms, allowing maximum contact with the tea for the best outcome possible.) Pop the ground mushrooms into a cup
2. Pour 2 cups of water in the kettle or saucepan and bring it to a boil
3. Take the water off the heat and leave it to cool down for up to 20 seconds
4. Put 1 cup of water in the cup containing the ground up mushrooms
5. Add the teabag and leave to infuse for 10-13 minutes
6. Remove the teabag and filter the remnants of mushroom from the cup, pouring the resulting liquid into a bowl. Finally, put the filtered mushrooms back into the cup
7. Bring the second cup of water to a boil, again with a kettle or saucepan
8. While the water’s heating up, mix a tablespoon of honey, some bits of ginger and (optionally) a splash of lemon juice
9. Once the water has boiled, take it off the heat and leave it to cool for 20 seconds max
10. Pour the water into the cup (that contains the once-filtered ground up mushrooms)
11. Add the second teabag and leave it to brew for 10-12 minutes
12. Take the teabag out and filter everything once more, pouring the resulting liquid into a bowl with the previously prepared tea
13. Squeeze the mushrooms to extract all the liquid
14. Throw out the rest of the mushroom. Now, in your bowl, you have a fully prepared helping of magic mushroom tea. Pour it into the mug of your choosing – filtering it in the process once again, if you want to – and drink it up. The result should be potent and taste as good as it can.

The recipe I’ve presented works well for 3.5g – remember this is a dose which can be very challenging for just one person – but the quantity can be altered to your needs. If you up the quantity of mushrooms you’ll probably have to up the quantity of water, because too little water and a large amount of diced mushrooms tends to form more of a dense cream that’s less easy to filter.

In these blog posts, you’ll find a wealth of useful information, particularly if you’re a mushroom rookie or a newcomer to psychedelics in general. If you do want to know more, my book The Magic Mushroom User’s Guide is made just for you!

Bonus

Another magic mushroom recipe! This one is very simple, and has its pros and cons compared to the tea method. Keep your preferences and needs in mind while reading.

We’re talking about putting the mushrooms – ground into a powder this time – into orange juice (and lemon, if you like). This will increase the acidity and facilitate the conversion of psilocybin to psilocin.

Once you’ve added the well ground powder, wait 20-25 minutes max, then drink after giving it another good mix. Alternatively, you can put the dry mushrooms in a blender, add in the already squeezed orange and lemon and then blend well. This is a great solution if you don’t have a coffee grinder. The mushrooms require some kind of liquid to be ground up by the blender/juicer – otherwise, they’ll just fly around without touching the blades nearly enough.

What advantage does this method offer over drinking mushroom tea? There’s no reduction in strength with regards to the active chemicals. In fact, there’s no heat involved and you can eat all of the mushroom itself. Even though there’s little loss with the tea too, as there’s very little active substance left in the physical mushroom remnants.

So what’s the downside? If you suffer from nausea when consuming mushrooms, this method is less efficacious at reducing that. Orange is not the most digestible of citrus fruits, especially if you’ve eaten that afternoon or even the evening before. Furthermore, the resulting product will contain all the “flesh” of the mushroom, making it generally less digestible than tea in any case. With this method, assimilation will happen much faster, and the taste will be much more disguised, especially if you add lemon, but other than that it won’t have any added benefits and the risk of nausea is the same as if you had simply eaten the mushrooms on their own.

Nausea

A note on nausea: many people don’t actually experience this side effect. I, for one, never have, not once. Some people get it the first few times, but not after that. I reckon the problem might derive largely from whatever people have eaten for their last meal and how many hours they’ve fasted before consumption.

Try to pay attention to this, and you might be able to resolve the issue quickly and easily. For some, nausea might come from little more than the nasty taste of the dry mushrooms. If that’s the case, the solution is to camouflage the taste and prepare some kind of liquid which can be drunk quickly – maybe while holding your nose. This way, you might not detect any flavour at all.

But if you’re ever tried ayahuasca… you’ll love the taste of mushrooms!

Other recipes

The possible recipes for consuming mushrooms are too many to count. Personally, I’d advise you to do some research on – and may experiment a little with – the recipes which utilise cocoa, starting with the raw beans, then looking into those which use cocoa or even chocolate. It’s not difficult to combine little chocolates or chocolate bars with mushrooms, melting the chocolate in a bain-marie and then cooling it in shapes of your choice.

The combination with chocolate is a nice one, not to mention the fact that chocolate contains substances which synergise well with the psychoactive properties of fungi. Perhaps I’ll try it one day and write about it in more depth. Or if you’ve already tried it, you can let me know about your experience, and maybe even make an article out of it!