Why I Don't Love Mushroom Coffee (And What I Drink Instead)
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I’m going to say something slightly controversial for the founder of a functional drink company:
I don’t really love mushroom coffee.
And here's the funny part: I actually like functional mushrooms. We use reishi in two Glim products.
I also don't think coffee is bad. I drank it for years, and for plenty of people, a morning cup of coffee is an enjoyable ritual that works just fine.
What I question is the idea that adding functional mushrooms to coffee somehow transforms the way we approach energy.
Because there's an important distinction we don't talk about enough:
Feeling stimulated isn't necessarily the same thing as supporting energy.
First, what is actually giving you energy in mushroom coffee?
Most mushroom coffees combine coffee or instant coffee with one or more functional mushrooms, such as lion's mane, chaga, cordyceps, or reishi.
But when you drink a caffeinated mushroom coffee and quickly feel more awake, there's a very familiar ingredient doing a lot of the immediate work:
caffeine.
Caffeine works primarily by blocking adenosine receptors in the brain.
Adenosine is a chemical that accumulates while we're awake and contributes to our drive for sleep. Caffeine doesn't eliminate that underlying need for sleep. It temporarily interferes with adenosine's ability to signal through its receptors, which is one reason you can feel more alert after drinking it.
That's not inherently bad.
Sometimes I want to feel more alert. Sometimes coffee is delicious. Sometimes caffeine is useful.
But I think we need to stop confusing “this made me feel awake” with “this solved why I was tired.”
Those are two very different things.
So what's my issue with mushroom coffee?
It's not the mushrooms.
It's the premise.
If I'm already underslept, stressed, running from one thing to another, and relying on caffeine to push through the day, adding a mushroom to that coffee doesn't necessarily change the fundamental equation.
I've still started with a stimulant.
And that's especially interesting to me as a woman in my 40s because I've become much more aware of how I actually want to feel during the day.
I don't necessarily want to feel more wired.
I want to feel awake, capable, focused, and steady enough to make it through everything I need to do without feeling like I'm flooring the gas pedal all morning.
That distinction became part of the thinking behind Cacao Balance.
Why cacao instead of coffee?
Cacao isn't caffeine-free.
And that's important to say clearly.
Cacao naturally contains caffeine, but it also contains another methylxanthine called theobromine. In cacao, theobromine is generally present in higher amounts than caffeine.
Theobromine and caffeine are chemically related, and both interact with adenosine receptors. But they don't have identical pharmacological effects. Theobromine is a weaker adenosine receptor antagonist than caffeine.
That's one reason I think it's overly simplistic to talk about cacao as if it's just “coffee without coffee.”
It's a different ingredient with a different methylxanthine profile.
And personally, I prefer how a cacao-based morning ritual fits into my day.
But cacao is only one part of the formula.
Then there's maca
Maca is a root native to the Andes that has been used traditionally for centuries.
Today, it's probably best known in the wellness world for its association with energy, stamina, mood, and sexual health.
There is human research investigating maca in areas including physical performance, fatigue, mood, hormone balance, and other aspects of well-being, but this is also an area where I think wellness brands need to be careful.
Maca isn't caffeine.
You don't take a sip and suddenly become Superwoman.
And I don't think we should pretend that every traditional botanical has decades of large, definitive clinical trials behind it.
What interests me about maca is precisely that it offers a different approach from simply adding more stimulant to the equation.
That's why it made sense alongside cacao when I was thinking about a daily functional drink for women who want support for busy days without recreating another cup of coffee.
Rhodiola might be the most interesting part
Rhodiola rosea is what is commonly called an adaptogen, a category of botanicals associated with helping the body adapt to physical and psychological stress.
Rhodiola has been studied in humans for things including stress-related fatigue, mental performance, and physical fatigue.
Some clinical studies have reported improvements in measures of fatigue and mental performance.
I don't want to tell you that one scoop of rhodiola is going to magically erase exhaustion.
That's not how I think about wellness.
Instead, I'm interested in the fact that researchers have been asking a different question about rhodiola than the one we usually ask about caffeine.
Not simply:
How do we make someone feel more stimulated?
But:
How might we support the way the body responds to stress and fatigue?
That is much closer to the philosophy behind Cacao Balance.
And yes, there's still more in the cup
Cacao Balance also includes date sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla.
Those ingredients aren't there because I wanted to make every line of the ingredient panel sound exotic.
They're there because this has to be something you actually want to drink.
Date sugar provides sweetness from whole dried dates rather than relying on stevia, monk fruit, or artificial sweeteners.
Cinnamon and vanilla round out cacao's flavor and make the whole thing feel less like taking a supplement and more like having an actual morning ritual.
That matters to me.
Because the best wellness routine in the world isn't particularly useful if you dread doing it.
So is Cacao Balance “better” than mushroom coffee?
I wouldn't make that claim.
Because what's better depends on what you're looking for.
If you love your morning coffee, tolerate caffeine well, and enjoy mushroom coffee, I'm not here to convince you to stop drinking it.
But if you're drinking mushroom coffee because you're looking for a fundamentally different approach to energy, I think it's worth looking more closely at what's actually in your cup.
Coffee plus mushrooms is still built around coffee.
Cacao Balance was built around a different idea.
Start with cacao.
Pair its naturally occurring caffeine and theobromine with maca and rhodiola.
Make it taste genuinely good with date sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla.
And turn it into a ritual you can actually look forward to.
Not because your body needs another hack.
And definitely not because one drink can compensate for poor sleep, chronic stress, inadequate nutrition, or running yourself into the ground.
But because sometimes the way we support our energy can be a little more thoughtful than simply asking:
How do I get more caffeine into my morning?
That's the question I eventually stopped asking.
And it's a big part of why I created Cacao Balance.