Wild Culture Mushrooms,the only medicinal mushroom market in Puerto Rico, held its official soft opening this past Friday, Aug. 9, at its second location. Located in Santurce, the expansion was driven by customer demand, with the goal of making its products, mushroom cultivation and educational experiences more accessible to people across the Island. If you already know about medicinal mushrooms, or are interested in learning more, the Santurce location is shaping up to be the place to go for information about their properties, uses and cultivation.
Max Rosales, co-owner of the business, explained in an interview with
Platea everything you need to know to make the most of each visit to Wild Culture Mushrooms.Platea:
What spaces does the new location have?Max Rosales:
There's the seating area, then we have the shroom bar, which is the counter where you order drinks or a little something to eat, and in the back is the mushroom market. We also have an education section, which would be a screen with interactive information. In the near future, we're going to build the lab, which would be for people who cultivate and want to work on their techniques; they'll be able to rent it by the hour. The lab should be ready in about a month.
P:
How does this new interactive screen at the location work?Max:
It's a really large screen that two people can use to learn a bit about mushrooms. Or, if they want, there will be options for them to learn about local Puerto Rico mushrooms and their benefits. You can search for mushrooms based on what you want to improve. For example, if someone wants to boost their energy level, they can say, "Look, I'm looking to increase energy," and it suggests the mushroom.
P:
Will you have new food or drinks at the shroom bar? Max:
At the shroom bar, one of the new drinks, part of our mico-lattes, is the Versicolor Cacao, which is a blend of turkey tail, an extremely medicinal mushroom, with cacao and milk. We also have our new mico-tonic, the Bohemian Groove, made with chaga and hibiscus flower. That one is a juice. P:
What's the most popular mico-latte? Max:
The Reishi Taro is the most popular. P:
Will you be launching any new products at this market? Max:
One of the new products we have is our MycoRoast, which is coffee with medicinal mushrooms. The coffee is from here, from Puerto Rico, infused with our extracts. That's one of the new products, and we have a larger variety of dehydrated mushrooms. We're working more now with some called
agarikons, which we didn't have before because we didn't have the space, and we have more in powder form. P:
Which mushrooms do people look for most? Max:
If we're talking about fresh mushrooms, it would be oysters, but if we're talking about which mushroom product sells the most, one of the most popular would be the lion's mane extract. That mushroom is the one that supports the cognitive system, and the extract is the top seller.P:
Will you have a display showing mushrooms growing, like the one at the Aguada location?Max:
Yes, we're going to do that in about a month or two, and by the end of the year it'll be ready because we're going to make it really special, and it's going to take time. The parts are very unique, so we have to wait on that, but by the end of the year it'll be done. P:
What about the educational experiences space and the lab?Max:
The lab is going to be a place for anyone who knows what they're doing and wants to work on their cultivation techniques, and doesn't have access to commercial or scientific equipment, to do it at the shop. But we're also going to increase the number of workshops we offer. Right now we only have one, which is the cultivation workshop. We're going to introduce other workshops: one on how to cook mushrooms, and also a children's workshop, which is coming soon.
The workshops are usually quite detailed. They run between 2 and 4 hours, and there is a fee that covers the cost of the materials provided. We always make sure people take a lot of value away from the workshops.
Q: How can people find out about and sign up for these workshops?
Max: The best way is to follow us on social media, specifically on Instagram: @wildculturemushrooms.
Q: What excites you most about this new space?
Max: You know, setting aside all the love we put into creating it, what excites us is that people used to come to Aguada and tell us, "We're from San Juan and we made the trip out here for the weekend." But now we're excited that we're here. We're already in San Juan, and all the people we met, who have been our customers for a long time, we're really pumped to see them walk in here and enter the Reino Fungi, as we call it.
Stay tuned for when we have the grand opening, which will be a weekend with a lot of information. We'll have workshops, we'll have talks and all of that. It's going to be a fungtastic weekend.
The store's regular hours will be announced in the coming months, according to Rosales.
This content was translated with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
