Walk through a northern birch forest and you may spot a black, cracked lump on a trunk that looks like burnt charcoal. That is chaga.
What chaga is
Chaga is the sterile growth (a sclerotium) of the fungus Inonotus obliquus. It forms on living birch trees, usually where the bark was damaged. The outside is black and cracked; the inside is rusty orange-brown and corky.
Where it grows
Chaga grows in cold northern forests — Scandinavia, the Baltic states, Russia, Canada and the northern USA — almost always on birch. It grows slowly, so a large chunk can be many years old.
How it is harvested
The growth is cut from the trunk, the woody part close to the tree is removed and the material is cleaned, dried and then cut into chunks or ground to powder. Our chaga comes from Latvia and the wider Baltic region.
A long tradition
In Russia and the Baltics chaga has been brewed as a forest tea for centuries, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn mentioned it in his novel Cancer Ward. We describe chaga as a traditional forest product and make no health claims.
Forms
- Chunks — cleaned pieces
- Powder
- Capsules
- Double extract