A new cafe with a unique concept has opened up in an interesting location on Main Street. Called MUD\WTR, the liquid refreshment on offer is not made with coffee beans, or even tea leaves, instead it utilizes almost every kind of conventional, non-psychedelic member of the mushroom family.
For founder and CEO Shane Heath, the notion of creating a new kind of beverage with these fleshy fungi is not at all far-fetched as his mother has worked for Monterey Mushrooms, arguably the biggest grower in North America, primarily for gourmet mushrooms. Heath himself had, up until six years ago when he established the company, forged a career in Silicon Valley as a UX designer.
His search for an alternative to coffee began while he was still in the technology industry.
“I started to look at tea, but a bag of tea didn’t really cut it for me and I love the dynamic taste palate that coffee provides. Ultimately, we landed on this combination of black tea and cacao and it’s got some depth to it, you know, that grandma’s tea bags don’t have,” Heath said.
Credit: Courtesy photo
“Because my mom worked in the mushroom industry, I was familiar with all the different species and started to add specific ones that had a benefit profile that fit what I was trying to do in my life,” he said.
According to Heath, Lion’s Mane helps focus and mental performance, Cordyceps helps with physical performance, Reishi aids recovery and immunity, Chaga improves overall health and then Turmeric helps reduce inflammation and Cacao lifts your mood.
“So this combination of ingredients was really helping me out,” Heath said, adding that he believed everyone else around him seemed to be coping and perhaps he was the only one suffering from work-related stress. “I’d bring this drink into the office and everyone asked me what it was. So, I just started calling it mud … And that’s really when the ‘ah-ha’ moment came for the business, because despite everyone around drinking coffee, most people I talked to actually wanted to drink less,” he said.
“I even used to sit next to an employee that was on [some sort of] caffeine detox gum, it was like Nicorette. And I saw some similarities between coffee culture, and nicotine and cigarettes,” Heath said.
In May of 2018, Heath started an online ordering business and within four years “we became a high multi-million dollar a year brand, all through our e-commerce, marketing and positioning of offering a healthier alternative to coffee.”
The flagship site, at 2515 Main Street, was once a carpet factory and offers a whopping 5,748 square foot space to work with, plus really cool aircraft hangar-style sliding doors. The interior renovation uses a lot of pine, combining it with a fashionable industrial aesthetic, together with lots of green foliage, which effectively creates a very chilled albeit potentially agoraphobic environment.
Approximately one third of the space is out of bounds to everyday customers though, as it doubles as the company’s headquarters. However, even the space outside is being utilized as there is a sauna and cold plunge set up and classes are regularly held in breathwork meditation.
Heath stresses the importance of, what he calls, the “third location” saying, “It’s something that coffee culture started, where it’s not your home, it’s not your workplace, it’s that in-between space, where you come in and you share, you communicate with other individuals.”
He expressed his desire to open more outlets in the future, but is not yet sure exactly where they might be. “The ultimate goal is to have a blueprint as it’d be hard to say no to as far as opening up additional locations,” he says and with close to two million customers online, he wants to study the data more closely before any decision is made.
MUD\WTR is located at 2515 Main Street with hours of Wednesday-Sunday, 7am to 3pm. For more information, visit mudwtrgather.com.