In India, roughly 13,000 people a month search for "ganoderma." About 880 search for "reishi." It is the same fungus. Nearly every brand in the country, including ours until recently, puts the smaller word on the label.
That is a small illustration of a larger problem. More has been written about Ganoderma lucidum than about any other mushroom, and a great deal of it is false. This page tries to be the exception. It describes what the fungus is, what is in it, how we extract it, and exactly what our laboratory found, including a figure that costs us a marketing claim.
It makes no health claims. Not one.
Six Names, One Fungus
The naming tells you where the speaker is standing.
| Name | Origin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Ganoderma lucidum | Scientific | "Shining skin." The lacquered surface |
| Lingzhi | Chinese | Spirit mushroom |
| Reishi | Japanese | The name most of the world uses |
| Yeongji | Korean | The same fungus |
| Red Reishi | Trade | The red-capped variety, the one sold |
| Mushroom of Immortality | Heritage | A cultural epithet, and nothing more |
That last one is a name people gave it two thousand years ago. It is not a description of what it does, and no honest seller uses it as one.
What Is Ganoderma Lucidum?
A glossy, red-brown to maroon, kidney-shaped shelf fungus that grows on hardwood. The cap looks varnished, almost wet, even when it is bone dry. It is woody rather than fleshy. Nobody sautés Reishi, because it is far too bitter and far too tough to eat.
It is cultivated extensively across East Asia. Ours is sourced from USDA and EU organic-certified suppliers, and we do not name farms or countries, because a supplier list is not a quality claim.
Whole fruiting body. Never mycelium grown on grain
The Most Lied-About Mushroom in India
For two decades, network-marketing sellers have moved Ganoderma coffee and Ganoderma capsules through Indian households on the strength of claims about serious illness. Those claims are not supported by the evidence, and we will not repeat them.
A rule you can carry anywhere
If a seller tells you a mushroom treats a named illness, they are breaking Indian law. It does not matter how sincere they are, how many studies they cite, or whether a relative swears by it.
That is true of us as well. Which is why this page does not do it.
The consequence is that Ganoderma arrives pre-poisoned. The word carries so much bad claim that honest description sounds like understatement. We are going to describe it anyway.
Triterpenes and Ganoderic Acids
These are the compound classes identified in Ganoderma lucidum fruiting body. They describe what is in the fungus, not what it does in a person.
- Triterpenes, and within them the ganoderic acids. Over 130 distinct ganoderic acids have been characterised. They are the source of the bitterness, and they are what Reishi is chemically known for.
- Polysaccharides, including beta-glucans. Long-chain sugars from the cell wall.
- Sterols, including ergosterol.
Kubota and colleagues first characterised the Reishi triterpenes in 1982. Wachtel-Galor and colleagues published a comprehensive review of the genus in 2011, and it remains the best single starting point for anyone who wants to read the field rather than the marketing.
Sources: Kubota T, et al., 1982. Wachtel-Galor S, et al., 2011. PMID 22593954
Why Hot Water Is Not Enough
This is the single most useful thing on this page, and almost nobody selling Reishi in India will tell you.
Ganoderic acids are alcohol-soluble. Hot water does not pull them out.
Polysaccharides are the opposite: water-soluble, and ethanol leaves them behind. So a Reishi product made by one method has, by definition, half the compound profile.
What dual extraction gets
- Hot water pulls the polysaccharides and beta-glucans
- Ethanol pulls the triterpenes, the ganoderic acids and the sterols
- Both fractions are then recombined
What a single method misses
- Water only: no meaningful ganoderic acid content
- Alcohol only: no meaningful polysaccharide content
- Dried, powdered whole mushroom: neither is concentrated at all
Two of the best-known Reishi products in India are a dried whole mushroom and a single-method powder. Neither publishes a certificate. Ask what method was used, and then ask what that method leaves behind.
Ours is a 15:1 dual extract, hot water and ethanol, from the whole fruiting body. Never mycelium on grain.
Triterpenes need ethanol. Polysaccharides need water. Dual extraction takes both
Our Certificate, In Full
Batch BE20251209. Every figure as the laboratory reported it, unrounded.
| Metric | Result | Method |
|---|---|---|
| Triterpenes | ≥ 6.13% | Oleanolic acid spectrophotometric |
| Polysaccharides | ≥ 25.11% | Megazyme K-YBGL |
| Beta-glucans | ≥ 20.07% | Megazyme K-YBGL |
| Ergosterol | 0.53% | As reported |
| Lead | 0.0892 mg/kg | EU EN 15763 |
| Cadmium | 0.0983 mg/kg | EU EN 15763 |
| Arsenic | 0.549 mg/kg | EU EN 15763 |
| Mercury | 0.00603 mg/kg | EU EN 15763 |
| Microbiology | All pass | As reported |
| Pesticides | Below limit of quantification | As reported |
Three things worth pointing at
Triterpenes at ≥ 6.13 percent. Our specification is above 4 percent, and this is the highest triterpene figure of any extract we sell. It is also the number a water-only extract cannot produce.
Beta-glucans at ≥ 20.07 percent. That is below 25 percent. A great many Reishi products advertise "over 25 percent beta-glucans." We will not, because our assay says 20.07, and 20.07 is not more than 25. Our polysaccharide figure, ≥ 25.11 percent, does clear that bar, and those are different molecules. Anybody blurring the two is hoping you will not notice.
Arsenic at 0.549 mg/kg. The limit is 1.0. We are comfortably inside it and we are also, honestly, on the higher side of comfortable. Mushrooms accumulate what is in their substrate. We would rather print the number than round it away.
Why publish a figure that loses us a claim
Because a certificate you only show when it flatters you is not a certificate. It is an advertisement.
15:1 dual extract. Triterpenes ≥ 6.13 percent, polysaccharides ≥ 25.11 percent, disclosed per batch
What This Page Will Not Say
You came here, quite possibly, because you read something elsewhere about this mushroom and a condition, a mood, or a measurement in your blood.
We are not going to discuss it. Not to confirm it, and not to hedge it into something that sounds like confirmation.
PubMed lists over four thousand published studies on Ganoderma lucidum. Most human trials to date have been small. The compounds are well characterised. Larger independent human trials are still emerging. We do not claim our product treats, cures or prevents anything.
What we can tell you is the species, the part of the fungus, the extraction method, and what the laboratory measured. That is above, in full.
If you want to understand why the word "adaptogen" makes this problem worse rather than better, we took that word apart separately.
A Question People Actually Ask
In Vitro
"Does Reishi lower testosterone?"
People search this. It deserves a straight answer rather than silence.
Some preclinical work, in cell culture, has examined anti-androgenic activity in Ganoderma lucidum extracts. That is cells in a dish. There is no human data. It is not a reason to take this mushroom, and it is not a reason to avoid it.
If you are managing a hormone-related condition, or taking medication for one, speak to a doctor before adding any supplement. That advice does not depend on the cell-culture literature. It is simply true.
Shen Nong and the Emperor
The Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, the oldest Chinese materia medica, compiled during the Eastern Han between roughly 25 and 220 CE, ranked lingzhi among the superior herbs. Above ginseng.
Two centuries earlier, in 219 BC, the first emperor of unified China sent a courtier named Xu Fu east across the sea with a fleet and some three thousand young men and women, to find a plant of immortality. The fleet never returned.
Said carefully
Sima Qian records that the emperor sought "a plant of immortality." The same tradition later named lingzhi the immortality herb. Those are two facts in one cultural lineage. Nobody knows what Xu Fu was sent to find, and any brand that shows you an emperor holding a Reishi is illustrating a story, not a record.
Sima Qian, Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), Chapter 6, compiled c. 94 BC. Wachtel-Galor S, et al., 2011.
The lacquered cap that gives Ganoderma lucidum its name: shining skin
Cautions
Reishi has been consumed as a tea in East Asia for centuries. That is not the same as risk-free.
- People with a known mould or fungal allergy should avoid it.
- Anyone taking an anticoagulant or antiplatelet medication should speak to a doctor first. This is the caution most worth taking seriously.
- Anyone pregnant or nursing, anyone scheduled for surgery, and anyone managing a medical condition should consult a qualified practitioner.
- Human trials are small and short. Long-term data does not exist.
- Do not give it to pets without a veterinarian's guidance.
Any seller who tells you there are no considerations at all has not read the literature either.
Buying Ganoderma in India
Four formats, and they are not interchangeable.
- Dried whole Reishi. Woody, bitter, slow. Simmered as a tea. Nothing is concentrated.
- Reishi powder. Ground mushroom, or a single-method extract. Ask which, and ask which method.
- Ganoderma capsules. Convenient, and opaque. You cannot see inside a capsule, so the certificate matters more, not less.
- Dual extract powder. Both fractions. Ours.
Five questions worth asking whoever you buy from.
- Fruiting body or mycelium? If the answer is vague, it is mycelium.
- What is the triterpene percentage? For Reishi this is the number that separates products.
- What extraction method, and why that one for this species?
- Is your beta-glucan figure per batch, or a stated minimum?
- Will you show me the certificate? Then read it.
Bitter, and traditionally taken as a tea. Half a teaspoon stirs into any warm drink
The Bottom Line
Ganoderma lucidum is a woody, bitter shelf fungus with a lacquered cap. It contains triterpenes, more than 130 characterised ganoderic acids, polysaccharides and sterols. Ganoderic acids need ethanol. Polysaccharides need water. A serious extract uses both.
Ours measures ≥ 6.13 percent triterpenes, ≥ 25.11 percent polysaccharides, and ≥ 20.07 percent beta-glucans, which is less than several competitors advertise, and which we have printed anyway.
Everything else you have read about this mushroom is somebody's claim. This is a description.
