Tea is one of the world’s most consumed beverages, yet many don’t realize its many health benefits and great way to reduce stress and anxiety. Mushroom tea can be made by steeping dried mushrooms or powder in hot water or another liquid to create its distinctive flavors and can even be added to other types of tea for an enhanced drinking experience.

Kombucha, commonly referred to as mushroom tea, is actually a fermented beverage made with tea leaves, sugar, bacteria and yeast. Once fermented, this beverage contains vinegar, B vitamins and various chemicals which have been found to aid digestion and detoxify livers. Furthermore, Chaga contains high concentrations of superoxide dismutase which protect and detoxify against free radical damage by protecting liver cells against free radical damage.

Mushrooms are an indispensable food source, yet their cultivation produces waste that must be managed. To address this problem, scientists are investigating ways that mushroom cultivators could utilize byproducts as sustainable casing materials for future cultivation – this research could ultimately make mushroom growing more environmentally-friendly and affordable for growers.

In this study, oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) were grown on substrates composed of different ratios of waste tea leaves collected at tea stalls and then subjected to boiling in order to extract water-soluble compounds that were then used as substrate for mushroom cultivation. Once harvesting was complete, yield, mycelia growth rate, and biological efficiency evaluation was performed on each mushroom strain grown on these substrates.

Different combinations of substrate were investigated, including using tea waste as a supplement to sawdust and rice straw (RS). The results from this experiment demonstrated that adding WTL significantly enhanced oyster mushroom yields; producing up to 189 grams per packet at 79% BE! In addition, results also suggested an ideal ratio for these materials: 50% WTL plus 50% RS

Although this study’s results are promising, more work needs to be done to optimize this process. Researchers should investigate different mixing ratios between tea waste and RS as well as determine whether specific compounds found in tea leaves affects mushroom performance. Together with their scientific colleagues, this team hopes to explore this technique’s potential as sustainable and economically feasible mushroom production techniques in future studies.