New Portland Cafe Opens With Focus On Shroom Lattes – CoffeeTalk

Shroom Coffee & Bar, a new coffee shop in Southeast Portland, is adding healthy doses of mushrooms and other plants to its diverse menu of beverages. The main goal is to make coffee with health benefits, according to co-owner Daniel Musa. They offer an “adaptogenic blend” of the Ayurvedic herb ashwagandha, lion’s mane, turkey tail, reishi, and cordyceps mushrooms, which can be added to any drink for $1 extra. The menu also features the shop’s popular ashwagandha latte, chaga mushroom tea, and honey sea buckthorn tea, all of which offer various health benefits, according to holistic health practitioners.

Ashwagandha has been traditionally used for stress management, hormonal balance, stamina, cognitive functioning, immune system health, to help with inflammation and support restful sleep. Scientific studies don’t back up all of those claims, though there have been few rigorous trials either way, according to the National Institutes of Health. Xenia Ruchka, the other owner of Shroom Coffee, said she first tried an Ashwagandha latte in India, where the herb has been used for generations by traditional medicine practitioners. She was inspired to bring it to Portland.

The owners of Shroom Coffee & Bar are making it a point to bring a slice of European and Asian coffee to the Pacific Northwest. One of their biggest sellers is the Raf coffee, a Russian drink made by adding cream and vanilla sugar to a shot of espresso, then foaming it all together. They wanted to bring this European style to the U.S. to show people how it works in their countries.

The coffee shop always seems to be playing with new recipes, rolling out seasonal specials, and maintaining a small “secret menu” of other drinks. They are passionate about the mushrooms and other medicinal plants that go into drinks but are also aware that sometimes people just want something simple. They made the mushroom blend optional, and the shop also serves a wide array of food, including locally made pastries, house-made cottage cheese pancakes, croissant sandwiches, sweeter options like Snickers mousse cake and a Dubai chocolate bar.

Shroom Coffee & Bar has seen so much business that they have had to hire additional help, partly due to social media influencers who showed up when the coffee shop first opened. At its heart, Shroom Coffee stems from the simple idea that sprang into Musa and Ruchka’s minds one day: “We really like mushrooms … and also we really love coffee.”

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