Native to northeastern Japan and North America, maitake appear as greyish brown clusters on trees and fallen wood, and can reach weights of up to 20 kg. Due to their increasing rarity in the wild, our maitake mushrooms are sustainably grown in shade-free, climate-controlled greenhouses to maximize both potency and purity.

New Roots Herbal’s Maitake (Grifola frondosa) is a hot water–extracted medicinal mushroom formula standardized to contain 40% polysaccharides (400 mg per capsule). Hot-water extraction is critical in obtaining a high-quality and effective mushroom product, and is the traditional Asian method of extraction. In the whole mushroom, polysaccharides are bound by indigestible cell walls comprised of chitin; chitin must be dissolved through hot water in order to gently release the medicinal components, the mushroom polysaccharides. Conversely, grinding the mushroom may cause damage to the long-chain polysaccharides and fails to remove the indigestible chitin (fibre), limiting the amount of therapeutic constituents that can be fit per capsule. Standardization ensures that the final product contains a consistent amount of polysaccharides to allow delivery of a therapeutic dose.

The active therapeutic compounds include two specific beta-glucans.