Tomahawks Chaga house Cafe` – Inonotus obliquus

I have collected Chaga – Inonotus obliquus all over the world in cold climates. Recently in Mongolia, I bought 2 kilos of chaga at a local market for about 20 bucks. It is one of my favorite natural drinks and is also really good for fire making.

Inonotus obliquus, commonly known as chaga mushroom (a Latinisation of the Russian term ‘чага’), is a fungus in the family Hymenochaetaceae. It is parasitic on birch and other trees. The sterile conk is irregularly formed and has the appearance of burnt charcoal. It is not the fruiting body of the fungus, but a sclerotia or mass of mycelium, mostly black due to the presence of massive amounts of melanin. The fertile fruiting body can be found very rarely as a resupinate (crustose) fungus on or near the clinker, usually appearing after the host tree is dead. I. obliquus grows in birch forests of Russia, Korea, Eastern and Northern Europe, northern areas of the United States, in the North Carolina mountains and in Canada.

The chaga mushroom is considered a medicinal mushroom in Russian and Eastern European folk medicine; medical evidence is emerging.

Alternative names
The name chaga (/ˈtʃɑːɡɑː/ ) comes from the Russian word of the mushroom (anglicized from чага), which in turn is purportedly derived from the word for the fungus in Komi-Permyak, the language of the indigenous peoples in the Kama River Basin, west of the Ural Mountains. It is also known as the clinker polypore, cinder conk, black mass and birch canker polypore.
In Norwegian, the name is kreftkjuke’ which literally translates as “cancer polypore”, referring to the fungus’ appearance or to its alleged medicinal properties. In Finnish, the name is pakurikääpä, combined from pahkura and kääpä translating as “wart polypore”.
In England and Canada, it is known as the sterile conk trunk rot of birch, which refers to the fruiting bodies growing under the outer layers of wood surrounding the sterile conk once the tree is dead, to spread the spores. In France, it is called the carie blanche spongieuse de bouleau (spongy white birch tree rot), and in Germany it is known as Schiefer Schillerporling (oblique Inonotus). The Dutch name is berkenweerschijnzwam (birch glow mushroom).

Medicinal research
Chaga has been used as a folk remedy in Russia and other North-European countries for centuries and it featured in Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1967 novel Cancer Ward.
Research on the health effects of I. obliquus has shown that extracts of it can hamper the growth and proliferation of tumors as well as have positive effects on the immune system. Though, according to the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center, “no clinical trials have been conducted to assess chaga’s safety and efficacy for disease prevention or for the treatment of cancer, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes”.

Id love to open up a Chaga house cafe, offering simple meals and a series of different chaga based drinks dedicated to wilderness people of the past.
Menu – Tomahawks chaga house café

1. The Bob Wagg – chaga infused rum and a draft beer.
2. The Dorothy Moulter – home made root beer served over chaga ice cubes.
3. The Woodland caribou – Usnea moss infused Shackletons Scotch, a shot of chaga tea, with sparkling water.
4. The Bull moose – equal parts Maine guides coffee and chaga infused bourbon served with a shot of maple syrup and creamer.

5. The Whisky Jack – a double shot of chaga infused bourbon and straight black Montana     guides coffee.
6. The desert rat –  Chaga infused tequila with a shot of prickly pear syrup and a chili tepin on the side.


Chaga at the Blackmarket in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia

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