Switching From Regular Coffee to Mushroom Coffee: What to Expect in Your First Two Weeks

Swapping your usual brew for mushroom coffee is one of those changes that sounds bigger than it actually is. There's no dramatic detox and no headaches from quitting caffeine cold turkey, since most blends still contain real coffee. It's just a gradual shift in how your mornings feel. Here's what tends to happen, week by week.

First, What Actually Changes

The name puts people off more than the product does. Mushroom coffee isn't a coffee substitute in the way chicory or barley blends are. It's ground coffee with functional mushroom extracts blended in, so the base of what you're drinking stays the same. What changes is what's riding alongside it.

The mushrooms used aren't the ones on your dinner plate. They're functional varieties with a long history of traditional use, dried and extracted into a powder that blends into the grounds without much trace. The three you'll see most often are worth knowing a little about, since which one is in your blend shapes what the cup is for.

Lion's Mane is the one most associated with focus-oriented blends, and it's the mushroom people tend to reach for when the goal is a working morning rather than a training session. Cordyceps has a long history of use around physical performance and endurance, which is why it turns up in blends aimed at active people. Chaga is the one you'll find in more general, everyday blends, and it brings a slightly darker, earthier note to the cup than the other two.

Days 1–3: It just tastes like coffee

This is usually the first surprise. Mushroom coffee isn't earthy or mushroomy in the way people expect. With a good blend, it tastes like coffee, because it mostly still is. The mushroom extracts are present in small enough quantities, and are neutral enough in flavour, that they sit underneath rather than on top of the coffee.

If anything, most people describe the taste as marginally smoother or slightly less sharp than their usual cup, and some notice a faint earthiness in the finish. Whether you register that at all depends a lot on how you take it. Black, you might notice a small difference. With milk, most people can't tell at all.

In these first few days, the main thing you'll notice is just your normal coffee ritual, unchanged. That's the point. A change you have to force yourself through rarely lasts, and the reason people stick with this one is that there's nothing to stick with.

Days 4–7: The afternoon crash softens

For a lot of people, this is where it gets interesting. Regular coffee gives you a sharp spike and an equally sharp drop a few hours later. Many people switching to mushroom coffee notice that dip feels less severe, with energy that eases off rather than falling away.

Part of this is simply the caffeine content. Most mushroom coffee blends sit a little lower on caffeine than a standard cup, since some of the volume is given over to the mushroom extract. If your normal habit is two or three strong cups before noon, you may be taking in slightly less caffeine than you're used to without having consciously cut back, and a gentler afternoon is a fairly predictable result of that.

It's early days, so don't expect a dramatic before and after. But it's often the first thing people mention, and it's usually the reason they carry on into a second week.

Week 2: You stop thinking about it

By now the new cup is just your cup. If you went with an Endurance blend for training days or a Focus blend for work mornings, you'll have a sense of which one suits which part of your week. Plenty of people end up keeping both and choosing based on what the day looks like, rather than settling on one permanently.

This is also usually when people either quietly go back to their old coffee, or quietly never buy regular coffee again. There's not much in between. Two weeks is enough time for the novelty to wear off and for the honest answer to surface: either it fits your routine or it doesn't.

A few things that help the switch go smoothly

Brew it the same way you'd brew any ground coffee: cafetière, filter, or stovetop all work fine. Don't overthink the ratio, just start with your usual amount and adjust to taste.

Water temperature is worth a moment's thought. Just off the boil, around 90 to 95°C, is the sweet spot, the same as it would be for standard coffee. Water straight from a rolling boil tends to pull out more bitterness, which is more noticeable in a blend where you're paying attention to the flavour.

If you're a two or three cup a day drinker, consider switching one cup at a time rather than all at once. Replacing your afternoon cup first is a common approach, since that's where the difference in caffeine level tends to be most welcome anyway.

And give it the full two weeks before deciding. Judging it after one cup is like judging a gym routine after one session. The first cup only tells you whether you like the taste, which most people do. Everything else takes longer than that to show up.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does mushroom coffee still contain caffeine?

Yes, most blends (including ours) are built on real ground coffee, so the caffeine is still there. The mushrooms sit alongside it rather than replacing it, though the overall caffeine content is often slightly lower than a standard cup.

Will it taste like mushrooms?

No, not in a well-made blend. It tastes like coffee. The mushroom powders are there for what they bring to the blend, not for flavour.

How long before I notice a difference?

Most people say the first week is just coffee as normal, with any difference in how the afternoon feels becoming more noticeable in week two.

Can I drink it every day like normal coffee?

Yes, it's designed to slot into a normal daily coffee routine, not as an occasional add-on.

Can I add milk and sugar?

Yes, take it however you take your normal coffee. Milk makes the small flavour difference even harder to detect.

Which blend should I start with?

Think about when you drink your coffee. A Focus blend suits a working morning, an Endurance blend suits training days. If you're not sure, start with whichever matches your most regular cup.

Ready to try it? Explore the full mushroom coffee range and pick the blend that fits your morning.