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Chaga (Inonotus obliquus


That_Guy

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Hi everyone, I just wanted to post some material on my experience with Chaga, and see how other people are preparing theirs. So far I have brewed tea, and I have to say, it tastes much better than I had anticipated. It has a slight bitterness, with a vanilla-like flavour.  I drink my coffee black, so I like the slight bitter taste, but adding some honey eliminates that slight acrid taste. 

Some say to steep the grounds in hot water for 5 mins, but I have always boiled the grounds on high for at least 1 hour, to get more constituents out. The longer you boil, the more bitter the brew. However, if it’s too strong, just dilute it with water. After boiling for an hour on high, I pour the brew through a cheese cloth. You can save the grounds in the fridge, and reuse them several times, until the water stops changing colour. 

How do you brew your tea? Do you have any unique recipes? Chai tea lattes? Ice cream? 

Can you see the 75lb hunk of chaga in the tree? Look close.

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  • 1 month later...

The first time I went to the work of using a hatchet to get it into small pieces, then I put it in a coffee grinder. The pieces were the size of small peas. I used coffee filters to brew mine. The taste was good but it got a little dusty.

Then someone suggested I just boil the whole chunk. I tried that and liked the taste much better and the tea turned out a little thicker than water. Sort of like there was a little syrup in there or something. The chunk I was using was about the size of my fist. If I do it again I'll probably use the hatchet to break up those pieces into half that size and see how it holds up. The fist sized chunk could be reboiled over and over and still had strong taste. I feel like I may have been wasting it a bit since there was probably some material in the center that was still full of flavor.

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