Preface
Here is a surface-level guide to the healing tea beverage made from a natural, organically-grown fungus, known for its healing properties.
We will use chaga mushroom, which grows in cold climates (sorry Austin, TX) on birch trees and contains insanely beneficial medicinal properties:
Findings on its bioactivity have demonstrated its ability as an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and antitumor agent. The study also demonstrates that Chaga powder has a long history of traditional use for medicinal purposes, pipe smoking rituals, and mystical future forecasts.
(Huh...pipe smoking rituals? Hm.)
A note on time-preference
(... it takes near a decade to cultivate and harvest, not to mention a plentiful amount of land and silver bitch). Please beware your consumption rate of chaga, because like Bitcoin it's supply is limited to what can be sustainably produced.
Since cultivation was out of the questions for me, I picked up a jar of a Canadian-grown, organic chaga at an herbal medicine store (see fig. 1-3 below). It was the last jar and I'm thinking the $50 Moose-Sheckles I spent was a steal for something that took so much time and energy to grow.
The beverage
The instructions for making "nutritious powerful drink" from these fungi were simple, according to jar:
for a nutritious powerful drink: Add one piece (about the size of a chestnut) of Canadian chaga mushroom to 4-6 cup (1-1.5L) of boiled hot water.
That being said, I just tossed them (I picked two just for fun) into my crock pot and set it for 10 hours. I came back to an opaque elixir (fig. 4) with a subtly sweet aroma. Nice.
How to enjoy (recommendation)
The beverage was lovely. I added some raw honey and enjoyed the calming, earthy, hot beverage before bed.
Reuse
The left-over chaga looked slightly darker than before (fig. 5). I read online they can be used up until they start falling apart. I'm thinking it can be ground up and used as an exfoliating addition to my soap. I'll report back about what happens to it.
Cheers,
Unschooled