Expert tempers health claims around Finland’s new mushroom coffee chain

Finland’s first Nivo café opened in central Helsinki last Thursday, offering coffee and matcha drinks with added powders. Yle reports that a nutritionist considers the drinks more a source of enjoyment than significant health benefits.

Nivo and R-kioski have the same Norwegian owner, Reitan Convenience Finland Oy. The café’s menu includes functional coffees and matcha drinks that can be supplemented with electrolyte, collagen, acai berry or mushroom powder.

Tinja Kuosa, Nivo’s group manager, said electrolyte matcha and lion’s mane latte were among the most popular orders on the café’s first day. The lion’s mane latte contains lion’s mane mushroom powder.

Lion’s mane is marketed online as having several positive health effects, including improved concentration. Terveystalo nutritionist Kirsi Englund assessed the café’s new drinks for Yle.

More enjoyment than health benefits

Englund said that a single ingredient does not make a food healthy.

She noted that the ingredients in a drink such as electrolyte matcha may have different purposes. Caffeine is intended to provide stimulation, while electrolytes are used to help the body absorb fluids more effectively.

Electrolytes are minerals that support the body’s fluid balance. They include magnesium, potassium, calcium and sodium, and are found in foods such as grains, vegetables, fruit and berries.

Matcha is a powdered Japanese green tea that contains caffeine and antioxidants. Englund described the drink as refreshing, with a strong green tea flavour.

Café servings generally safe

The powders available at Nivo include collagen, mushroom extracts and various proteins. Englund described the selection as harmless in café servings or as an occasional trend drink for healthy adults, but said people should not expect miraculous effects.

According to Englund, there is still very little evidence of the therapeutic benefits of mushrooms in humans. When powders are mixed into coffee, the feeling of increased alertness is almost always caused by caffeine rather than the mushroom.

She also pointed out that serving sizes and product quality vary between cafés. Scientific studies use standardised extracts in large doses, while café use is generally occasional.

For antioxidant effects and health benefits, Finnish berries such as blueberries, lingonberries and sea buckthorn, along with familiar high-fibre foods, offer considerably stronger and better-researched benefits than imported powders, Englund said.

Pregnant and breastfeeding people, those with autoimmune diseases and people taking blood-thinning medication are not advised to use medicinal mushrooms regularly because their safety has not been studied sufficiently.

Collagen in collagen matcha is often marketed as a protein for skincare. Englund said the body processes all proteins, including collagen taken as a supplement, in the same way: it breaks them down and directs them to where they are needed.

Matcha’s bright green colour may also attract children and young people, but its caffeine content means it should not be consumed in large quantities.