What's in a Reishi mushroom tincture?
There are a lot of Reishi mushroom tinctures out there on the market today — and we've tried a lot of them. With due respect to our competition, the vast majority of them simply do not cut it. So we set out to make our own, a Reishi tincture that hits on that elusive combination of high potency and great taste, and something that athletes would be excited to use every day.
It's not so easy to find or buy high quality Reishi. And then, even if you got a hold of some, how do you make sure your body can access all the active compounds in the mushroom? You can't just eat it, unfortunately. The cell walls of these functional mushrooms are made of chitin, a super-fibrous substance, and humans don't naturally produce enzymes to break it down. In other words, when eating Reishi, it cannot easily be digested and the active compounds inside are not available for the body to use (a.k.a. bioavailable). This is why functional mushrooms are often consumed in extracted forms, like tinctures, to make sure the beneficial compounds in the Reishi are more readily bioavailable and absorbable by the body.
A pic from inside Jake Plummer's mushroom farm, where he is checking in on the Reishi mushrooms growing there: 
Why use a Reishi tincture?
We think of taking functional mushrooms kind of like taking your vitamins. Obviously, you should check with your medical professional about what's right for you, but generally speaking, for most people, it's something we think you should do every day, and that Reishi is an all-star that should be a part of an athlete's daily diet. You can easily take a tincture every day, adding it to a morning coffee or smoothie, or just popping it straight into your mouth. Not only will you be able to get more of the active compounds, those compounds will be as bioavailable as possible.
What makes our Reishi tincture the best?
We like to think that our Reishi mushroom tincture is is the best. But how can we be so sure? Here are four reasons why:
Reason #1: Professional-grade, organic mushrooms
All our mushrooms are grown in North America, on by farmers who have been cultivating and processing functional mushrooms since at least 1996. All of the farms we use are USDA certified organic. And we use a third-party lab to test for microbials, heavy metals, and any foreign matter.
We do not import any of our mushrooms. This is important because mushrooms grown overseas are not required to follow or report the same regulations as those grown here. We do not want our ingredients processed, shipped, or stored, with any harmful chemicals. We prefer to work with a small handful of farms that we can closely monitor, allowing us to have a lot more control over the quality of the ingredients we use.
Reason #2: Full spectrum of mushroom benefits
We use a mixture of fruiting body and mycelium for our Reishi tincture. But importantly, there are no fillers or additives in our final product. In order to
make this happen, the fungi is grown to full maturity over the course of several months and harvested only once the substrate on which it was grown has been at least 95% consumed. Every batch is grown from young cultures, monitored closely through the growth cycle, harvested at the optimum stage of growth, and carefully processed to ensure the highest possible potency.
We prefer a mixture of fruiting body and mycelium because each part of the fungi contains varying concentrations of the beneficial compounds — or, in some cases, they each contain unique compounds not found elsewhere. By including both, we can include everything the mushroom offers in our tinctures.
Reason #3: A triple-extraction process for high potency
We use a triple-extraction process to ensure our Reishi tincture is potent and highly bioavailable. The three steps of the triple-extraction process takes approximately 120 days. Here’s how it works:
- Fermentation: To break down the tough outer cell walls (a.k.a. chitin), ensuring our bodies will be able to absorb and use the active compounds in the mushrooms
- Water extraction: We use filtered water to draw out the alpha- and beta-glucans, along with other polysaccharides.
- Alcohol extraction: We use organic cane alcohol to free other active compounds that the water extraction could not, including non-polar triterpenoids.
Then we remove the alcohol — the final product is less than 1% alcohol — and stabilize the tincture using organic vegetable glycerine, which gives our tinctures a slightly sweet taste.
Reason 4: Tested and used by professional athletes
As you may already know, Umbo was founded by professional athletes. All of our products are created, tested, and used by them and their close circle of friends who are also pro athletes, trainers, and nutritionists. So by the end of the product development process, we have a really good idea of what works best for an athlete.
They call it the mushroom of immortality, of longevity. Reishi helps with anxiety, the nervous system, vitality, all sorts of stuff. In the world, we're under stress, constantly. And especially so as athletes. That's why I take Reishi every day.
—Jake "The Snake" Plummer, Pro-Bowl NFL quarterback
Reason 5: Our customers love it
As of the publication date of this article, at the beginning of 2024, our Reishi tincture was reviewed exceedingly well by our customers, earning an average of 5 stars out of a possible 5 stars.
Here is a quote about our Reishi tincture, straight from a real, verified Umbo customer:
Life Changing! I take a drop of it along with my Myco Rest before I go to bed and I've never slept better. UMBO has changed my life!
—Jason K, 5/26/23
That's it. Those are the five reasons we consider our Reishi tincture to be the best available on the market today. Let us know what you think. Even better, try our Reishi tincture for yourself — or learn more about the Reishi mushroom and its benefits for athletic performance.
