Nammex, the premier North American supplier of certified organic functional mushroom extracts, recently commissioned a tool to help product formulators create successful functional mushroom beverage products.
As demand for high-quality functional mushroom ingredients intensifies across food, beverage and nutraceutical markets, sensory performance has emerged as a vital benchmark for ingredient selection.
This report provides valuable insights for formulators, R&D teams and brand managers looking to elevate product quality with proven, high-integrity mushroom ingredients.
Nammex is making the full organoleptic Mushroom Sensory Panel summary, Elevating Sensory Expectations: A Technical Panel Review of Nammex Organic Mushroom Extracts, available to interested formulators.
“Beverage companies are seeing the huge growth in functional drinks designed around the benefits of functional mushrooms, so the purpose of this report is to help them speed their time to market with successful products, “ said Skye Chilton, Nammex CEO.
This report shares the findings of a professionally conducted sensory analysis of 16 mushroom extract samples from Nammex, evaluated for their flavour, aroma, bitterness and overall appeal.
The panel focused on culinary and formulation-relevant attributes.
To develop the report, an expert panel was convened by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the BC Beverage Technology Access Centre (BCBTAC), a Canadian sensory science hub known for helping food and beverage innovators unlock flavour profiles and consumer appeal.
The trained panel comprised chefs, a sommelier and a fermentation specialist, who evaluated samples across the following dimensions:
- appearance, aroma, bitterness, astringency, acidity, flavour
- overall hedonic Score (1–10)
- qualitative notes for culinary and formulation use.
Nammex submitted 16 organic mushroom extracts across seven species for sensory analysis.
Products were standardised by weight and steeping protocol: 5.00 g in 250 mL of freshly boiled water, steeped for 10 minutes and filtered through 1.8 μm glass-fibre filters.
Extract ratios included 1:1, 8:1 and dual-extraction formats. For 2 days, this tasting team dove deep into the details: aroma, mouthfeel, bitterness and more, scoring each extract’s unique character on a 1–10 scale. Among the formulation insights for industry professionals in the report:
- High culinary utility: Maitake and Cordyceps 8:1 extracts stand out for their flavour density, offering chefs and R&D teams a ready-to-use ingredient in savoury-forward products.
- Variable bitterness across species: Lion’s Mane and Reishi showcase wide sensory swings based on extraction method—essential for brands formulating for palatability or bioactivity.
- Solubility and clarity: Lower-ratio (1:1) extracts generally yielded clearer filtrates, while higher-ratio products brought more complexity but occasional haze—relevant in RTD formulation.