Mush Coffee, serving mushroom-infused brew, opens in East Rockaway
An iced caramel musshiato with mushroom espresso at Mush Coffee in East Rockaway. Credit: Newsday/Andi Berlin
A new cafe that's entirely dedicated to mushroom coffee drinks has touched down on Long Island. Mush Coffee opened this month on the marina in East Rockaway in a strip of businesses that includes Lazy Lobster.
Mush Coffee in East Rockaway serves small batch coffees blended with mushrooms. Credit: Newsday/Andi Berlin
The shop is owned by Jenny Sprizzo and Doreen Xu, both U.S. Navy Reserve veterans who previously had an import/export business out of Manhattan. Sprizzo said that supply chain problems during the pandemic made her consider a career change, and that she began to work on the mushroom coffee idea two years ago, finding a factory in Colorado that would create custom blends for her. She's still working on the packaging and shipping side of the business, but the cafe is ready to go.
"After the pandemic, there were two issues. The first one, a lot of people worked in the home and were lonely," Sprizzo said. "Second one, is because after pandemic, everybody thinks healthy food is very important."
An emerging trend, mushroom-infused coffee is touted as a healthier alternative to regular coffee because it's often lower in caffeine and has various nutrients from the mushrooms. Sprizzo said that her coffees with lion's mane and chaga mushrooms can boost brain function, and have antioxidants to help with immunity and inflammation.
The coffee shop will pour you the mushroom coffee straight, or whip it up into various hot and iced concoctions like a mushccino (cappuccino), a mush-Americano and a caramel musshiato ($7.85). With all that whole milk and caramel in there, it's actually difficult to taste the mushrooms at all. The iced coffee is sweet and syrupy, with a roasty flavor that could be from the fungus, or maybe that's just, well, coffee.
Mush Coffee, 1 Dock St., East Rockaway, 516-424-4843, mushcoffee.shop. Open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.
Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.
