Article from the June 2005 Onion Skin!
Sustainable Simplicity:
Green Mountain Mycosystems
By Erin Williams, Publications Coordinator
Published in the Onion
Skin, June 2005
Despite
its cheerful packaging, VTea risks blending in with the other bottled
teas crowding the beverage cooler. A quick glance at the ingredient
list of these cranberry and lemon flavored beverages reveals what makes
them truly unique: reishi mushrooms, sustainably wild-crafted in Vermont
by Green Mountain Mycosystems.
It's
a product that begs the question - why mushrooms? They aren’'t
exactly the first thing that springs to the mind of your average thirsty
consumer, but Green Mountain Mycosystems are brewing tea for reasons
beyond satisfying popular taste: Making the health benefits of reishi
mushrooms easily accessible to consumers is a top priority for the drinks'
creators, as well as the challenge of doing it all in a sustainable
manner.
Green
Mountain Mycosystems, LLC was founded by David Demarest, whose experience
working at the Intervale Foundation cultivating oyster mushrooms led
him to seek methods of mushroom production that required less resources
and energy and had a limited environmental impact. He was joined by
Pete Dombrowski, who picked up his extensive microbiological lab skills
at the University of Pennsylvania, and later by Jason Pappas, whose
studies of native medicinal plants and mushrooms throughout the region
had led him to seek a certificate for indoor and outdoor mushroom cultivation
from renowned mycologist Paul Stamets.
The reishi mushroom (Ganoderma tsugae) extract found in each
VTea bottle has a history of healing. Reishis have been used in traditional
Chinese medicine for 2,000 years as an immune booster and to detoxify
and promote healthy liver function. David can personally attest to the
health benefits of these mushrooms. By consuming large doses of reishis
found on his property he was able to eliminate the antibiotics he was
taking for Lyme disease, and is now symptom free.
Reishis
may be common to Vermont's wooded areas, but making the most of them
is a time-consuming process: the mushrooms must be cooked for two hours
to extract their benefits. Green Mountain Mycosystems’ innovation
to blend reishi tea with delicious ingredients makes enjoying the mushrooms
as simple as opening the cooler door. “"We're dedicated to
making reishi accessible and convenient,” says Jason. In addition
to VTea, Green Mountain Mycosystems also makes a reishi extract, available
in one-ounce tinctures.
David,
Jason and Pete developed the recipes for VTea to be compatible with
their belief in sustainability. All the ingredients are from local sources,
with the only exception being the organic lemon juice used to flavor
one tea. It's a practice that supports the local economy and reduces
the amount of fossil fuels and emissions that result from trucking ingredients
from afar. “"There are three Vermont farms in every bottle,"”
says Jason. VTea's cranberries come from Vermont Cranberry Company in
Fletcher, Vermont, and all it takes is a stop at the Walker family farm
down the road for the organic maple syrup.
"We
want to focus on keeping it simple,"” says Jason. “"We
choose acidic juices to avoid adding citric acid, yet [the tea] has
a rich, complex flavor.” The result is a refreshingly earthy drink.
For Green
Mountain Mycosystems, keeping it simple informs every aspect of production.
“"A big focus is sustainable energy production and independence
from fossil fuels,"” says Jason. “"Our lab is
run on a solar-electric system and one of our farm trucks is biodiesel.”
The process
begins on David's 51-acres in Underhill, where the conks (mushrooms)
are wild-crafted (a harvest of plant material from its native environment).
A couple of conks are always carefully left untouched so spores will
continue to be released back into the woods. These wild-collected mushrooms
are eventually used to brew the tea, and their spores are used for log-cultivation.
The spores
are grown in petri dishes in Green Mountain Mycosystems' sterile lab,
then transferred to bags of grain. When mycelium begins to grow, it
is transferred to ordinary furniture dowels. Fully colonized dowels
are hammered into hemlock logs with holes drilled through them. The
logs are sealed with wax and carefully stacked throughout two acres
of woods where they are kept damp throughout the summer months. After
one to two yearsof resting under the forest canopy, mushrooms will begin
to fruit. Jason and David will be able to harvest from the same logs
for five or six years until they eventually break down - a process free
of by-products!
Harvested,
dried mushrooms are taken to the Food Venture Center in Fairfax, Vermont,
where VTea is currently brewed and bottled. The Center is a USDA-inspected,
non-profit kitchen that small Vermont businesses can rent by the hour,
giving them the resources to make a product without the overhead of
running their own kitchen. There the process starts with a mushroom
extraction. According to Jason, “"The mushrooms are brewed
for two hours in filtered water. When it's done we add maple syrup,
then the cranberry or lemon juice. It's that simple.”
Green
Mountain Mycosystems is already feeling growing pains. The Food Venture
Center has been an invaluable resource for the young company, but it
is not a bottling plant. Two people have to spend 20 hours to produce
600 bottles of tea. “"The ideal goal is a Vermont bottling
plant, possibly collaborating with a dairy and being energy-efficient,”
says Jason.
VTea
was officially launched at the NOFA conference held in Massachusetts
last August. Back in Vermont, Green Mountain Mycosytems took their grassroots
marketing door to door - to local co-ops, health food stores and restaurants,
as well as a maintaining a regular spot at the Burlington Farmers' Market,
setting up demos wherever they could. The challenge is overcoming hesitations
to taste such an unusual product. “"The hardest part is getting
people to try it. We have to put it right in front of them. Once they
try it they either like it or don't. It's definitely different,"”
admits Jason.
But their
persistence has turned skeptics into believers: “"Every week
at the Farmers' Market people come back and say ‘'[The tea] is
really helping me out.' And that's ideal when people tell us they swear
by our tea because they didn't get sick all winter. It makes me feel
great about what I'm doing,"” says Jason.
The bottles sitting on the cooler shelf are deceptively simple. Hard
work, thoughtfulness and care go into every one. Says Jason, "We're
investing in our community and neighbors. People in turn have
invested in us. It's been really rewarding for us.”
While Green Mountain Mycosystems strives to make the smallest environmental
impact, their product is certainly one that impacts those who try it.
VTea and reishi extracts are available at City Market, and you can also
catch Green Mountain Mycosystems each Saturday at the Burlington Farmers'
Market, where Jason and David are happy to talk to curious customers.
“"It's a product I really believe in and am proud to be associated
with,"” says Jason. “"It's the healthiest tea
on the shelf: it's a really natural, healthy drink.”"