From Buckets to Brews

Why We Made a Mushroom Coffee

Back in 2014, before North Spore had a name, a logo, or any kind of roadmap, it was just me, Jon, and Eliah growing Blue Oyster mushrooms in buckets. We had a salvaged pressure cooker, a DIY lab set up inside an old grow tent, and a hunch that fungi were going to be a much bigger part of the world than most people realized. I was making deliveries to Portland restaurants and learning on the fly. It wasn’t glamorous, but it felt like we were building something real.

North Spore has changed a lot since then. We’ve grown from a scrappy side hustle into a company that now supplies mushroom growing supplies and spawn to people all over the country. But at the core, we’re still the same group of weirdos obsessed with fungi. We still geek out over a perfect flush of oysters or a particularly aggressive strain of lion’s mane. We’re still learning, still trying new things, still trying to share what we love with anyone who’s curious.

That’s what led us—maybe a little unexpectedly—to coffee.

Why We Made It Ourselves

In the North Spore break room the coffee pot is always working overtime. The shelf underneath it always has North Spore tinctures, capsules, and myriad medicinal mushroom drinks from our friends and competitors around the country.

There are already plenty of mushroom coffees out there, and many of them ended up on that shelf at one point or another, but we never found one that checked all our boxes: great taste, fruiting body-only extracts, no weird additives.

A lot of the mushroom products out there—especially in the wellness space—are starting to drift into snake oil territory. You’ve probably seen the ads: dramatic promises, miracle cures, people sprinting through forests like they’ve unlocked ancient powers after one cup, treating a mushroom coffee like it’s a sex drug. Some of it’s just silly, but some of it’s actively misleading—especially when companies use mycelium grown on grain and pass it off as “mushroom” without clarifying the difference. As people who actually grow fungi and know what goes into quality extracts, it’s frustrating to see hype overshadow the real, evidence-based benefits that functional mushrooms can offer. It’s part of why we felt a responsibility to do this right—to offer something grounded in real science, made by people who actually understand the biology.

So we made our own. Because we love coffee… and mushrooms. And because we wanted to bring our background in mushroom cultivation and extraction into something more people could enjoy—no inoculation required.

This is for people who love coffee and for people who live and breathe mushrooms. Who care about what they put into their body. Who are curious about functional mushrooms but don’t want to sacrifice flavor or fall for marketing hype.

And that’s kind of the point. This wasn’t about launching a new product line or reinventing coffee. It was about creating something we wanted to drink. Something we could stand behind not just as business owners, but as mushroom nerds. As coffee drinkers. As people who want to feel a little more focused in the morning without crashing by noon.

What It Feels Like to Drink It

Everyone experiences it a little differently, but here’s what the team here has noticed: it’s smooth and grounding, with an energy lift that doesn’t spike and crash. There’s a clarity to it, like your brain fog got up and went for a walk. And there’s this subtle calm that rides underneath the buzz—like the mushrooms are smoothing out the rough edges of caffeine.

We brew it just like regular coffee—pour-over, French press, drip machine, whatever you’re into. It’s not instant. It’s not a gimmick. It’s just good coffee that also happens to support your focus, immunity, and overall well-being.

What we ended up with is smooth, balanced, and just... better. Not better in a "change your life" kind of way—just better in the sense that it makes mornings feel a little less chaotic.

I don’t think of this as a pivot for North Spore. It’s more of an expansion—a new way to share the value of medicinal mushrooms with people who might not be ready to start taking daily capsules or brew up their own tinctures. It’s approachable. It’s familiar. And if it opens the door for more people to explore what mushrooms can do, then I think it’s worth it. Coffee has already become the defacto delivery mechanism of functional mushrooms for millions of people around the country- why not put the North Spore touch on it?

As always, thanks for being here. Whether you’ve been following us since the Westbrook mill days or just stumbled across this post, I appreciate your curiosity. And if you do end up trying the coffee, let me know what you think. We’re always listening.

Oh, and thanks also for following this Substack. It would help us out a ton if you shared these articles with your network!