Chaga

[Quebecnewf]

have any of you guys heard of chaga. .
If you have have you ever seen any or sold any?

I found dome on a birch yesterday and I heard it sold for 400.00 a lb.

Quebecnewf

[addysdaddy]

Heard of it. A neighbour lady into the homeopathic medicine was talking about it. Apparently it makes a good tea for antioxidants and works on a lot of stuff. If you google it online it sells for around 50$ a pound with free shipping. Lots of images of it so it would be hard to confuse. Apparently cutting it off kills the tree. The old stories of the Native American/Canadian culture mention birch bark tea as a great healing drink. Maybe this is what was behind the history book writings?. Did you get a photo?

[Klicker]

We get $60.00 a pound at the market in Halifax NS

[47sawdust]

There are 3 pages of posts about chaga in the General board.My wife makes medicinal tinctures from chaga.She has a drug store of herbal remedies here in the house to keep us healthy.

[woodjunky]

cruising the back roads with the wife yesterday. low 60s. snow melting. Come up on what i thought was a fairly large (chaga?) growth on a good sized white popple, or possibly a birch. i almost turned around and went to verify, but it was on private land. Now that you mention it kills the tree. Thats no good.

Still interested in the stuff.

[WLC]

We have a lot of white birch up here.  Fairly easy to find chaga if you go hunting it.  Harder to get if its up high though.  I have a friend that has tree steps he screws in and climbs up to get the higher stuff.  Some folks will just cut the tree down.  That's quite wasteful in my mind.  Stuff goes for $20-30 a pound here.

We've tried it and it makes a nice pleasant tea with a little honey added for sweetness. 

[Fundyheather]

Yo Quebecneuf,

What you need to know about Chaga, real name Inonotus Obliquus:

If you see a big canker on a birch tree looking like a lump of extruding charcoal, brittle dark brown to black pore surface, interior bright yellow/tan that's corky, you are looking at the sclerotium of the fungus which is the marketable part.  That thing is concentrating betulin from the bark, among other things.

Smack the side of it with the back of the axe and a big part of it will break off in the snow where you can pick it up clean.  take it all including the ugly black stuff.  Decide how to process it first, as you need to do a lot of hammering or some kind of grinding if you let it dry out.  Stores frozen best, just according to me.

Your competition will say the Siberian form is better; mention which way the Chernobyl nuclear cloud drifted.  In the rest of the world mention the radioactive particle portion drifting down into the woods from coal burning to power hair dryers.  Where you are is pollution free compared even to where I am, so you should have market advantage (on this board) and probably world wide.

best luck
jim         

[Fundyheather]

Here's a picture because we like pictures.  At top right is a section through the chaga including some attached bark.  The grinds are the finished product.  It will grind when fresh and damp with a cheese grater if you want to try it.

[Magicman]

Chaga LINK  Also do a FF search for more information.

[Bill_G.]

Actually the Chaga will eventually kill the tree , it feeds off from it like a parasite .

[Fundyheather]

Probably true about chaga killing the birch tree, they both die together. 

But interestly, Paul Stamets 'Mycelium Running' page 257 recounts a Quebec arborist healing blight infested chestnut lesions with chaga paste.  Treated trees said to develop blight resistance.   

[Kbeitz]

This is what grows on my white burch...



 



 

[Magicman]

It's pretty.   

[Fundyheather]

You may have a young form of birch polypore, Piptoporus betulinus, another common yet unexploited medicinal product of the birch tree. Otzi, the 5000 year old ice man was carrying this mushroom, maybe as tinder, as a wound dressing, as an antimicrobial against his intestinal parasites - take your pick.           

[Mooseherder]

I went looking for some last summer and found this instead.



 

[Miller-Thinner2]

Heres some chaga I harvested a week or 2 ago. They anywhere from $2.5 to $5 a pound straight off the tree wet. I see some people selling it processed and dried for $30 a pound. Becomes very hard when dried out. I prefer to chunk it up before it drys out. once its dry I vac sac it and hopefully will last many years

[Fundyheather]

Yo Mooseherder
looks like 1 and 2 year old birch polypore;  the new stuff has a veil on the bottom, is generally bugless and edible off the tree raw. 

Miller, that's a lovely chaga photo on the birch, and your stuff is better than expertly processed.   

[Miller-Thinner2]

I wish N.B had a place that would buy Chaga. Im in the woods hiking all the time and see a lots of chaga. Seen some around the week of Christmas went back 3 weeks ago and its a clear cut now. Had I know then I'd a picked lots.

[SwampDonkey]

There are as you already know, but like most everything up here it's fickle and hit and miss at best. The dart board economy. :D

[Fundyheather]

There is a business based in Shippagan NB that appears to buy chaga and sell it in mega quantities.
http://www.megachaga.com/

The parent company buys ground hemlock (Canada Yew,) in case you also see that in your travels.
http://chathambiotec.com/

(I have no interest in either company, nor do I know if they are looking for suppliers.)