In this 30‑minute YouTube review, Victoria S. Dorsano examines Rise (Ryze) mushroom coffee by combining personal experimentation with a critical look at the scientific literature and industry practices. She begins by framing the mushroom coffee market as a $3 billion sector rife with hype, then explains what mushroom coffee is—instant coffee blended with powdered extracts of functional mushrooms such as lion’s mane, cordyceps, reishi, chaga, shiitake, turkey tail, and king trumpet. Dorsano summarizes the strongest evidence for three key mushrooms: lion’s mane (neuroprotective, studied at 1–3 g doses, benefits mainly in older adults), cordyceps (potential ATP‑boosting, early fatigue‑reduction data, but unclear dosing), and reishi (immunomodulatory, adaptogenic, modest stress‑cortisol effects). She highlights a recurring problem: studies use gram‑level, single‑species, fruiting‑body extracts, whereas commercial blends list only a total milligram amount for a proprietary mix, obscuring actual doses and source (mycelium vs fruiting body). Citing a 2023 Nutrients analysis that found widespread mislabeling and contaminant issues, she proposes a three‑point evaluation checklist: (1) explicit fruiting‑body sourcing, (2) individual milligram dosing per mushroom, and (3) third‑party testing. Dorsano then shares her 30‑day experience with Rise: instant coffee taste is “bitter/weird” but convenient; each scoop provides 48 mg caffeine (≈1/3 of a regular cup) and 2,000 mg total mushroom blend. Subjectively she felt calmer and more mellow rather than more focused or energetic, even when increasing the dose to match regular caffeine levels, suggesting a reishi‑driven adaptogenic effect. She also stresses water quality, promoting a Bluevia countertop reverse‑osmosis filter as essential for extracting bioactives. Finally, she outlines who might benefit (caffeine‑sensitive individuals, older adults seeking lion’s mane benefits) and who likely won’t (healthy adults under 40). She recommends high‑quality green tea as an alternative low‑caffeine, L‑theanine‑rich option, provides a downloadable PDF comparison of mushroom coffee brands, and links to a separate video on evaluating supplements (creatine). The video ends with a call for viewer comments, likes, and subscriptions.
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So I bought the most popular mushroom coffee on the market and I drank it every day for 30 days and I took some notes. Some of what I found confirmed exactly what I expected and some of it definitely didn't. And by the end of this video, you're gonna know exactly if mushroom coffee is worth your money or if it's just another marketing scam. Because here's the thing, there is actually real science behind the power of mushrooms. No, not those mushrooms. I'm talking about these mushrooms. But there's also a nearly $3 billion industry built on stretching the science way past what the research supports. Yeah, you heard me right. $3 billion in mushroom coffee. We're all concerned about Big Pharma, but we're not even talking about Big Mushroom. And I found a lot of the videos about mushroom coffee are either full of believers or full of haters, neither of which is actually really useful for you. So let's do what we always do here. We're going to look at the evidence, cut through the noise, and give you an honest answer. So let's get into it. Like I said earlier, mushroom coffee is a nearly $3 billion industry as of 2025. It's everywhere. Whole Foods, Amazon, Instagram shopping, TikTok shop, every wellness creator's morning routine, and the claims that go along with drinking mushroom coffee are pretty aggressive. Better focus, more energy, less stress, improved immunity. Basically just regular coffee, but smarter. There are multiple big name players in the game, but recently one has been rising to the top of the list across all different advertising campaigns I've seen and social media, and that is Rise. But I didn't wanna just talk about this objectively. I wanted to have my own subjective experience of trying mushroom coffee myself. And there are a ton of major players out there like Four Sigmatic and Mudwater, Laird, Everyday Dose. I specifically decided to go with Rise because they have been popping up all over the place across my social media. They've become one of the most popular brands lately, so I had to give them a try. Before we get into my own experience of trying mushroom coffee for 30 days, I want to talk a little bit about what is mushroom coffee exactly. So essentially, all these mushroom coffees are just normal coffee mixed with powdered medicinal mushroom extracts. Not the mushrooms you throw on pizza, we're talking about functional mushrooms like lion's mane and cordyceps and reishi, chaga, species that have been used in traditional medicine for centuries and that are now actively being studied in labs. So the simple pitch of mushroom coffee is that you are getting the energy component from the coffee, right, from the caffeine, and then you're mixing it with these functional medicinal mushrooms. So you're getting the benefits of that and then you're blending them together in something that's giving you somewhat of a milder caffeinated coffee with these additional functional mushrooms, which, yeah, sounds great on paper. If it tastes okay. Now, a lot of these coffees tend to use like instant coffee powder and not actual coffee beans, but it does make it a very convenient option. For example, Rise Coffee mixes straight into water and is ready in like 30 seconds. No machine, no brewing equipment, no mess. But the first thing I did when I got Rise is I flipped over the package and read the label, and this is where it gets interesting. You see, Rise itself contains 6 different mushrooms. We've got cordyceps, reishi, lion's mane, shiitake, turkey tail, and king trumpet. All of those accumulate to about a total of 2,000 milligrams of mushrooms in one single serving of this mushroom coffee. And that sounds substantial, like 2,000 sounds like a lot of milligrams, but there's a key problem that I noticed immediately when looking at that. And this is something that's done very often across the wellness space, and that is a proprietary blend. So we don't know exactly what dose of what mushroom is equating to that 2,000 milligrams. This could be 99% king trumpet and then like a little tiny sprinkle here and there of each of these other ones. We don't know. This is again the core transparency issue that's at the center of not only the mushroom coffee industry, but just the wellness industry and the supplement industry at large. And that's going to matter a lot when we dig into the science here in a sec. So let's talk about which of the mushrooms are actually doing most of the heavy lifting in these mushroom coffee blends, including rye. The first one is lion's mane. Lion's mane has the strongest amount of evidence out there for its benefits. It contains two compounds that are called heracenones and erinacins that stimulate nerve growth factor, a protein involved in the growth and maintenance of neurons. Several small randomized controlled trials have shown significant cognitive benefits, particularly in older adults with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer's. A 2025 review in a journal called Nutrients specifically called it neuroprotective with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory capabilities. Here's the critical detail, though. Those trials used doses of about 1 to 3 grams, so 1000 to 3000 milligrams of standardized lion's mane extract taken consistently by the participants over months. And as another caveat, you remember how I mentioned that those studies included older adults? Well, another review in 2024 in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Review looked specifically at mood and cognitive effects of lion's mane over a lifespan, and it found that the benefits are most pronounced in older populations. So younger for healthy adults, much of a weaker signal, not really significant results. So does lion's mane do something real? Yes, especially with age or particular cognitive concerns. Does a single cup of mushroom coffee do enough to deliver any results? Almost certainly not. All right, so let's move to impactful mushroom number 2, and that's Cordyceps. Cordyceps is marketed as an energy and performance mushroom mainly. It's been linked to improved ATP production, which, if you know from some of my previous videos, ATP is like the body's energy currency. Some research suggests suggest that it may improve aerobic capacity and therefore reduce exercise-related fatigue. So athletes in particular fall victim to this claim, and I get why. I mean, who doesn't want to feel like a superhero in the workouts and like they could just keep running forever? Nice. So an honest read on the evidence here, I'd say promising but early. A 2021 review in Frontiers in Pharmacology found positive signals for a reduction of fatigue but explicitly noted that active components aren't fully characterized and the effective dose isn't confirmed and just more research is needed in general. So we have an interesting direction in a positive way, but it's not by any means concrete yet. All right. So let's move to the third most impactful mushroom, and that is reishi or reishi, however you want to say it. Reishi is specifically where I found the most evidence for the case of putting it into mushroom coffee, but probably not for the reason that's being marketed. Reishi has well-documented immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory properties. More relevant to this conversation, it's a legitimate adaptogen. There's mechanistic and early clinical evidence of stress response modulation and cortisol modulation, and there's even some data on sleep quality improvement as well. So it's not nothing, but it's definitely more of a specific and modest claim than the general marketing term of improves focus and energy. And I can even tell you right now that my personal experience lines up with the experience of what I would assume is the reishi mushroom doing its thing in the mushroom coffee. We'll get into that in a sec. So quick summary of all three of those mushrooms being the most impactful and well-researched. The research is real, it's promising, but it's not complete yet. The phrase that continuously came up across all the research was gram-level dosing of a single standardized extract. That's what the studies used, not a multi-species proprietary blend in a single cup. Now, obviously it's research. They're trying to isolate a single compound and determine the benefits of that, right? But again, cool, that's great. If we know the benefits at a certain dose for some of these mushrooms, at least let's at least try to dose that appropriately and transparently in the product. Which leads me to the marketing problem. Most of what's being sold in this category of mushroom coffee is charging a premium and underselling you the most beneficial components of that product. Issue one is we don't even know for the most part what part of the mushroom you're getting in the product. The fruiting body of the mushroom is the cap and the stem. That's usually the highest bioactive part of the mushroom where most of its beneficial compounds come from. Mycelium is the root system of the mushroom, and that is often grown on grain substrate in a lab setting, which means that you can actually end up with filler grain material mixed in with the actual product you're getting. Ryse claims to use a mixture of mycelium and fruiting bodies, but it doesn't really disclose like how much of what. Also to note, mycelium doesn't mean automatically bad. Some research suggests that mycelium has its own set of active compounds. But it does mean that the bioactive profile of that mycelium is very different than what's been researched in studies, which is the fruiting bodies. Now, there are some brands out there like Four Sigmatic and even Everyday Dose that lists exactly how much of their fruiting bodies that they're using, but they still don't really get close to a therapeutic dose. The second main marketing problem I see across most mushroom coffees is something I call like dose theater. They essentially will throw together a huge blend of a bunch of different mushrooms and then have a large amount like again, 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000 milligrams. But you don't know how much of what is in that blend. The number itself sounds impressive, but if you need roughly at minimum 1000 milligrams of, for example, lion's mane mushrooms daily to see an effect, in particular the fruiting body of lion's mane mushroom, then most of these blends are probably not even getting close to that. A 2023 paper in the journal Nutrients analyzed commercial mushroom supplements and surprise, surprise, found widespread mislabeling. There were species mismatches, variable beta-glucan content, and of course, unwanted contaminants. A separate analysis found that 74% of the products saying that they contained reishi had no reishi whatsoever. This is not industry gossip either. This is peer-reviewed documentation that this supplement category has serious quality control issues, which is exactly why the transparency on the labeling of these packages isn't a nice to have. It's the whole ballgame. So when evaluating a mushroom coffee, here's the minimum bar I would set. One, does it specifically list that they are using fruiting body extracts, not just mycelium? Two, does it list individual milligram dose per type of mushroom included? And of course, do those even get close to the effective doses? And three, is there any third-party testing indication either a label on the package or somewhere on their site to know that this has been tested. If you can't answer yes to two of those three at minimum, then you're paying mostly for fancy marketing. Okay, so while we're on the topic of being intentional about what you put in your body, here's something that I realized during this 30-day test. If you're going to invest in quality mushroom coffee or any coffee for that matter, then the water you're brewing it with actually matters. Water quality directly impacts taste and how well you're actually extracting all those beneficial compounds. This is my Bluevia reverse osmosis countertop water filter system, and I've been using it for about a year and a half. Bluevia specializes in countertop reverse osmosis technology. That's their whole focus. And for somebody like me who can't install an under-the-sink reverse osmosis unit, this was the perfect solution. And it has been the most wonderful water filter I have ever had in my entire life. And no, I'm not just doing cool show and tell just for the sake of show and tell. I wanna tell you guys about this because if you're gonna care about the quality of your functional beverage, which if you're watching this video, you clearly do, it's worth thinking about the water that you're making your beverage with too. You see, reverse osmosis filters down to 0.0001 microns. That means that this little guy removes things like heavy metals, PFAS, microplastics, and other disinfection byproducts that end up in our tap water system due to the water treatment process. Things that a simple water pitcher filter like Brita just do not even touch. For example, the Chicago water usually contains about 170 parts per million of dissolved solids in the water, so different contaminants, this brings it down to 2 or even 1 sometimes. Why this specifically works for me is that I rent an apartment and there is no installation that I wanted to have as far as putting in any unit under the sink or any total unit reverse osmosis system. This is super easy. I can plug and play wherever I go. Comes with a glass carafe, so no plastic leaching, and you only have to replace the filter like once a year. Now, is clean water going to transform your health overnight? No, I'm not going to tell you that. But if you're already deliberate about what you're consuming, then water is a logical piece of that. So thank you to Bluevia for sponsoring today's video and sponsoring my hydration for the past year and a half. Link is down below in the description if you want to check one out for yourself, and you can use code Victoria15 for an extra 15% off. All right, so let's talk about who mushroom coffee might actually make sense for. And I want to anchor this in with what the research says first, but also my own personal experience, because I think the two actually tell a pretty coherent story. People who genuinely stand to benefit from something like mushroom coffee would be folks who legitimately have a caffeine sensitivity. If regular coffee tends to give you anxiety or the jitters, or you just need to be mindful of your blood pressure, but you still really enjoy coffee in the morning, a lower caffeine option with some adaptogenic support, definitely a reasonable and evidence plausible swap. Another group who mushroom coffee might be best suited for is for older adults who particularly are looking for that lion's mane benefit. As I mentioned earlier, lion's mane is the main mushroom that has cognitive benefits for older populations. Though for that demographic, I might point you towards a more dedicated lion's mane support supplement that has a higher dosage in particular of lion's mane. Who I don't think benefits very much from mushroom coffee are healthy adults younger than the age of 40 who don't have any cognitive issues or don't have caffeine sensitivity. Honestly, the peer-reviewed literature just doesn't support any, like, clear benefit for this group, for mushroom coffee in particular. You'd get a lot more kind of return if you just focused on improving your sleep by like 5% than you would from any mushroom coffee on the market right now. And now, after 30 days of trying Rise, let's talk about my personal experience. First off, the taste is interesting. I mean, it's instant coffee. It has kind of that bitter, weird taste to it like instant coffee does. It's not undrinkable. But if you're a coffee lover, then this is not probably gonna be like the thing you're gonna love. That said, I do want to give credit where credit's due. The convenience is genuinely great. Being able to mix it really quickly in hot water, 30 seconds, have it be done, ready to go— that's amazing. But aside from that, you can alter the dose. So if I don't want the full 48 milligrams of caffeine that come in the single scoop, I can half that or take a little bit and mix it with a small amount of water. So there's ways you can adjust it, which I did appreciate. The caffeine dose is 48 milligrams per tablespoon, so it's relatively low. And for reference, a usual cup of coffee is around 150 milligrams of caffeine. So as far as the effects goes, this was the most interesting part of the journey for me. What I noticed most consistently was not more focus or more energy. It was calm, more mellow, almost too mellow for my personality. I play volleyball, I play sports, so, you know, you kind of for your sport, want to get kind of hyped up a little bit. And on mornings when I had Rise as my only caffeine source, I felt very lax going into my volleyball sessions. I kind of felt like I just wanted to like chill out and hang and talk. Now, was that from the mushrooms effect or was that just from the lower caffeine dose? Honestly, I can't say for certain, but what I can say is some days I did bring up the dose to 3 tablespoons. And so around my normal 150 milligrams of caffeine, and I still kind of felt the same way. But my guess is that this could be the effects of the reishi as well. Reishi is an adaptogen associated with cortisol modulation, not cognitive activation. So the overall verdict here, mushroom coffee, it's not a scam, but it's also not the superfood revolution that the marketing wants you to believe. Just unfortunately not the doses that you're getting in a single cup or a couple cups of coffee. If you want a little caffeine but not too much, to try like a really high quality green tea. Something like Gyokuru made with clean filtered water. You get the well-documented EGCG antioxidant benefits, a calm focused energy from the naturally occurring L-theanine, and lower caffeine, and it tastes great. So those are my thoughts after 30 days of trying Rise Mushroom Coffee. And if you want a quick comparison guide of all the mushroom coffee brands and the dosing and ingredients included in each, I put a link to download our PDF guide down below. And if you want to go deeper in how to actually evaluate supplements, what the evidence supports, what's pure marketing, what's actually worth you spending your money on. I did a full breakdown of creatine using that exact same framework. You can check that out by going to this video, and the link for that is down in the description. So I'd love to hear from you guys. Have you tried mushroom coffee? If you have, what have been your results, your— what you've noticed in your experience? And then if you haven't, what's kept you on the fence? Always love hearing from you guys in the comments. And don't forget to like this video and subscribe to the channel. It helps so, so much, and I will catch you guys on the next one. Bye!
