- Dried reishi mushroom
- Water
If you don't have a scale, know that 3 grams is about 1 heaping tablespoon of broken or ground reishi pieces.
The amount of water is your choice as well. It all depends on how many cups of tea you want to drink. I use about 4 - 5 cups of water for every 3 - 5 grams of reishi (you can see how exact I am about this). This will boil down to a fraction of the original amount.
Preparation
Smaller pieces are better for a hot water extraction. That said, have you ever tried to pulverize Ganoderma lucidum? I once broke a coffee grinder blade trying to break one apart!Use whatever you have to break them into pieces. If you have an appliance that will grind them, that's great. Otherwise you can try to cut with a heavy blade or break apart pieces with your hands. If this is all too much work you can still use a whole dried mushroom per pot of water.
An easy solution is to buy a pre-sliced bag of dried reishi. This will save you the trouble of having to break them apart.
Instructions
Bring the water to a boil in a stainless steel or ceramic pot. Don't use aluminum for such a prolonged boiling process.Add the mushroom pieces. Reduce the heat until the mixture is simmering, not outright boiling. Let it simmer for 2 hours.
Remove from the heat, strain, and set aside. Allow the liquid to cool a little, as it's quite hot. You can repeat the process with the strained pieces until the resulting extraction is no longer bitter or colored.
