Reishi, Cordyceps and Lion's Mane: what's the difference?
Written by Simon Coxon, founder of Herbal Monkey. Simon has been sourcing and preparing botanical extracts since 2023 and packs every order himself from the workshop in Essex.
Three mushrooms come up more than any others when people email me: reishi, cordyceps and lion's mane. They usually arrive in the same sentence, as though they are interchangeable. They are not. They look different, they taste different, they have been used for completely different things for hundreds of years, and if you buy the wrong one you will probably be disappointed for reasons that have nothing to do with quality.
So here is the plain version. No hype, no charts, just what each one is and how people have traditionally used it.
The short answer
- Reishi is the evening one. Bitter, woody, traditionally taken to wind down.
- Cordyceps is the morning one. Traditionally taken before physical work.
- Lion's mane is the everyday one. Mild, almost seafood-sweet, traditionally taken for focus and study.
If you read no further than that, you already know more than most people picking a tub off a shelf.
Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum)
Reishi is a hard, glossy, kidney-shaped bracket fungus that grows on hardwood. It is so tough you cannot really eat it. In Chinese it is lingzhi, and in the old texts it turns up as a plant of longevity rather than a food. That is a clue to how it has always been used: slowly, in small amounts, over long periods.
It is genuinely, memorably bitter. That bitterness comes from the triterpene compounds, and it is the main reason reishi is usually taken as an extract rather than eaten. People who take it tend to take it in the evening.
The thing worth understanding about reishi is the extraction ratio, because it changes what you are actually buying. A 15:1 extract means fifteen kilos of dried mushroom were reduced to one kilo of extract. A 20:1 means twenty. The higher the ratio, the less powder you need, and the more of the water-soluble fraction you are getting rather than indigestible cell wall.
We stock reishi three ways: as whole dried sliced mushrooms for people who want to make their own decoction, as a 15:1 extract, and as a new 20:1 fully water-soluble extract at 50% polysaccharide.
Cordyceps (Cordyceps militaris)
Cordyceps has the strangest history of the three. The original wild species, Ophiocordyceps sinensis (long known as Cordyceps sinensis), parasitises ghost moth larvae in the alpine meadows of the Tibetan plateau and the Himalayas, which is exactly as odd as it sounds and is why it was historically one of the most expensive botanicals on earth. Almost nothing sold today is that. Most modern cordyceps, including ours, is Cordyceps militaris, cultivated on a substrate, and it is a bright orange club-shaped fungus that looks nothing like the caterpillar version.
That substitution is a good thing rather than a compromise. It is sustainable, it is consistent batch to batch, and it means the price is sane.
Traditionally, cordyceps is the one associated with breath and physical work in Chinese and Himalayan herbal lineages. Taste-wise it is mild and slightly savoury, closer to a stock than a tea.
People generally take it in the morning or before physical effort, for the fairly obvious reason that nobody wants to find out the hard way whether it keeps them up.
We stock it as dried whole mushrooms, as a 15:1 extract, and now as a 20:1 fully water-soluble extract.
Lion's mane (Hericium erinaceus)
Lion's mane is the odd one out, because it is the only one of the three that is genuinely nice to eat. It grows as a white cascade of soft spines, like a small frozen waterfall on the side of a tree, and cooked properly it has a texture and sweetness close to crab meat. Chefs use it for that reason alone.
Traditionally it sits in a different category from the other two. Where reishi is the evening plant and cordyceps is the effort plant, lion's mane has long been associated with study, attention and mental work. In Japan it is yamabushitake, named after the mountain-dwelling Yamabushi monks.
Of the three it is the one people most often take every day rather than in cycles, and it is the mildest tasting by a distance, so it is the easiest to put in coffee or a smoothie without noticing it.
We stock whole dried and powdered lion's mane, an organic 20:1 extract, and a fresh tincture.
So which one do you want?
| Reishi | Cordyceps | Lion's mane | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taste | Strongly bitter, woody | Mild, savoury | Mild, faintly sweet |
| When people take it | Evening | Morning or pre-effort | Any time, usually daily |
| Traditionally used for | Winding down, longevity | Breath and physical work | Focus and study |
| Easiest form | Extract, always | Extract or dried | Anything, it is palatable |
| Goes well in | Evening tea, cacao | Coffee, broth | Coffee, smoothies, cooking |
If you want all three without buying three tubs, our 7 Mushroom Coffee Blend contains all of them alongside chaga, shiitake, maitake and tremella, ground in with arabica. It is the least fussy way to find out which ones you actually notice.
A note on the numbers
All three are sold at different extraction strengths, and the numbers on the bag are worth understanding before you compare prices between suppliers. The short version: the ratio (20:1) tells you concentration, and the beta-glucan percentage tells you what was actually measured in it.
Beta-glucan is the number to look for, not "total polysaccharides". A total-polysaccharide figure also counts alpha-glucans, including starch from any grain the mushroom was grown on, so a product can post a large polysaccharide number while containing very little actual fungal material. Beta-glucan, measured by enzymatic assay, is the specific one. A ratio quoted with no beta-glucan figure tells you how hard someone worked, not what you got.
I have written that up properly, with the fruiting-body-versus-mycelium distinction that matters even more, in extract ratios explained. Worth ten minutes before you buy mushroom extracts from anyone, us included.
How much, and how
Rather than repeat myself here, each of these has its own preparation guide with amounts and methods:
- Extract intake guide (20:1, 50% polysaccharide) — the ratios and method are the same across our 20:1 extracts
- Dried mushroom preparation and decoction guide
- 7 Mushroom Coffee Blend guide
The general principle with all three is the same one that applies to most botanicals: start at the low end of the guide, stay there for a couple of weeks, and only then decide whether you want more. Mushroom extracts are not the sort of thing where doubling the amount doubles anything.
If you take them regularly
All three are on subscribe and save, which knocks up to 15% off and means you stop running out and forgetting. You can pause or skip any time, which people mostly use for holidays.
Everything above describes traditional and historical use. Nothing here is medical advice, and none of these products are intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition. If you are pregnant, breastfeeding, taking prescribed medication or under medical care, speak to your doctor before adding any botanical to your routine.
Questions about any of this? Email me directly at simon@herbalmonkey.co.uk. I read them all.
