Lion’s Mane Mushroom Tea: Taste, Drying and How to Brew It

Lion's mane (houtougu, 猴头菇, "monkey head mushroom") is a snowy, pom-pom-like mushroom whose cascading soft spines really do resemble a lion's mane. Ours is grown by a Thai farm devoted to this one mushroom, and it is widely regarded as some of the finest lion's mane in Thailand.

Taste and aroma in tea

Dried lion's mane gives the cup a gentle, enveloping body: faintly sweet, with nutty, creamy undertones and a whisper of umami - like a fine mushroom broth, only lighter. It is especially at home with ripe pu-erh and black tea, deepening their earthy warmth, and it lends green tea a little extra weight. The liquor takes on a soft golden hue.

A mountain delicacy in old China

In old China, houtougu was a banquet rarity, "monkey head from the hills, bird's nest from the sea," as the saying went: one of the handful of ingredients a cook could build a whole table around. It reached those tables cooked, not brewed. Torn into strands, braised with soy and rock sugar, stewed in a clay pot: the fibrous flesh does a fair impression of chicken, which is why temple kitchens took to it early and why it still turns up in Chinese vegetarian cooking. Japan named it after mountains too: yamabushitake, for the round tassels on a yamabushi monk's robe.

How to brew

Lion's mane likes an unhurried steep: water at 95–100 °C and three to five minutes gets you the flavour, nut and cream; for the beta-glucans you want the decoction, fifteen to twenty minutes below a boil. The pieces hold up to several infusions, growing mellower and rounder each time.

How it is harvested and prepared

Most lion's mane now is farmed, not foraged. It is grown indoors on sterilised hardwood-sawdust blocks, or on hardwood logs; in the wild it turns up on oak, beech and walnut from late summer into autumn. The fruiting body (the white, hanging-spined "pom-pom") is cut with a knife while the spines are still bright white, about one to two centimetres, before they yellow and drop their spores.

The mushroom is brushed clean, not washed, since it soaks up water, then sliced and dried slowly at low heat: push the heat and the nutty smell cooks off, and the pieces scorch at the edges. For tea it is traditionally simmered as a hot-water decoction, the way any tough dried mushroom is handled, fifteen to twenty minutes below a hard boil, so sustained heat breaks the tough chitin walls and releases the water-soluble beta-glucans. Hericenones and erinacines are largely fat- and alcohol-soluble, so what a water tea draws out is the beta-glucans and that broth-like body. And the recognisable mushroom is the fruiting body, which is not the same as mycelium grown on grain.

On our shelf

We keep lion's mane for the blend builder, where it's a premium add-on, from 60 ฿ a part, up to three per 100 g pouch: supplier-grade fruiting body from a Thai farm, added when a cup wants a savoury, broth-like depth under a ripe pu-erh or black tea. It's the one mushroom we stock, and we treat it as an ingredient, not a remedy.

Why simmer lion's mane instead of steeping it?

Chitin. The cell walls are tough, and three minutes in a gaiwan barely opens them - you get colour and a thin savoury note, no more. Fifteen to twenty minutes just below a boil breaks those walls down and pulls out the water-soluble beta-glucans along with the broth-like body. A short steep is fine when you're adding a pinch under pu-erh; the long simmer is for a cup of lion's mane on its own.