Sustainable Chaga

Sustainable Practices are the non-negotiable cornerstone of Life Itself. As Chaga becomes more and more realized for its incredible benefits on human life, it becomes subject to industrialization, and greed filled business practices. Our reverence for Chaga, and the ecosystem it grows within, ensures the longevity of it's medicinal use for humans while maintaining it's role in Nature. While the practices we engage in take more effort, time, and energy, we remain uncompromising in our integrity.

What are some practices you do to remain in alignment with Nature?

We harvest all of the Chaga we use in our products in the Winter months to ensure there is no damage done to it's living host; Birch. As the sap of Birch retreats to the roots in Winter, it makes it the most responsible time to harvest from the tree as not to create a "bleeding wound".

We always leave a generous portion of Chaga on the host Birch to ensure that the living relationship continues.

We only use Chaga that we personally harvest, ensuring our standard for sustainability is always met, and keeping our production limited to only what we can personally harvest.

After we harvest a piece of Chaga, we hike roughly 1/2 of a mile away from the harvest site before we begin searching again. This ensures that we aren't depleting an ecosystem of it's biodiversity.

Beyond harvesting sustainably, we practice reducing our need for Chaga by way of innovation and intelligent preparation. We personally grind every chunk of Chaga into very fine powder, increasing the surface area, creating a deeper and more medicinal extraction while using less raw material. This responsible innovation reduces our need for Chaga greatly while improving the quality of our offering.

Even further, we have created a rotational system for brewing Chaga into our hot water extracts. This innovation creates 3x more yield of the highest quality extract using the same amount of ground Chaga.

After the Chaga grounds are done being extracted, there are still medicinal compounds that inevitably remain. After extraction, we use the Chaga grounds in creative ways such as, recycling them into Goat Soap, rolling them into raw desserts, using them as a natural dye in clothing, and with any extra beyond that, we donate to our local permaculture practitioner, Jesse.

 

We are going even further:

We realize that even while we take the utmost care in harvesting and processing Chaga, that there is still concern for this species as many businesses do not take ethics and Natural systems into consideration. So while we started as a solely "Chaga Company" you'll notice that we are transforming our offering into a vast spectrum of healing herbs. We'll still use Chaga in our formulas, just drastically less and combined with other synergistic herbs. Our vision is to have changed our business model and offer these synergistic herbal blends by Spring 2021.

We must all be courageous in facing the truth and becoming the change we wish to see. This is what we aim to embody as individuals and as a company.