Taste Test - the mushroom coffee from wellness brand Mushroom Cups

What is it?

Mushroom Cups’ Mushroom Infused Organic Coffee, £12.25 for ten sachets.

This drink is available in varieties to promote focus, help you to relax, heal, or there’s a workout version, which promotes endurance and strength.

They all contain a quartet of mushies - wild chanterelles, cordyceps (a strange looking funghi, which resembles a caterpillar), lion’s mane and chaga. None of your common or garden chestnuts or buttons.

According to the maker, Stipe Rezic, who is an ex-member of the Croatian basketball team, it’s a combination that can boost health, immunity and all sorts of other good stuff.

They blend it with instant coffee so it’s easier to fit into your lifestyle.

Where can I buy it?

Available from www.mushroomcups.com and Amazon - there are no Scottish stockists yet.

What does it taste like?

I get the Go Sharp! concentration-promoting version of this drink, but delay trying it for as long as possible.

I’m not a huge mushroom fan, and, as a caffeine snob, I don’t much like swapping my Artisan Roast for instant.

Still, I am a sucker for any kind of superfood. I’m the turmeric, miso and manuka-honey-loving person for whom marketing was invented, and this beverage is all over Instagram.

To make the coffee, they say to add a packet to 5-7oz of hot water, and drink one to two servings a day.

Once stirred, it looks a bit like oxtail soup, and I’m sure I could smell the earthy mushrooms, though I think that may have been my imagination.

It mainly tastes like a slightly superior Nescafe, which I would only drink if I was absolutely desperate. I add sugar, and some milk, so it goes down easier.

The coffee bit is obviously just the Trojan horse to get those mushrooms into you.

After half an hour or so, I do feel focused – my tippety-tapping on the keyboard starts getting more manic and there is a certain buzz. It may have worked, or perhaps it was the Artisan Roast I used as a chaser.

5/10