First, about The Last of Us
If your first introduction to Cordyceps came from The Last of Us, I understand why the name may not immediately make you think, That sounds great in my coffee. It probably does not help that so much of the show was filmed right here in Calgary and around Alberta. A lot of us got to watch familiar streets, campuses and overpasses transformed into post-apocalyptic America while a fungus took over the human population. Great television. Slightly awkward marketing for anyone in Calgary trying to explain why Cordyceps is in a coffee blend.
The writers did borrow from something real. Certain Ophiocordyceps fungi infect ants and can manipulate their behaviour in ways that help the fungus complete its life cycle. That is where the famous zombie-ant story comes from. The jump from highly specialized insect-fungus relationships to Cordyceps taking over human beings, however, belongs firmly to television.
The zombie-ant part is real. The Calgary mushroom apocalypse is not.
Once we get that out of the way, Cordyceps actually has a much more interesting story. Researchers have studied different Cordyceps preparations in areas such as exercise, oxygen use, endurance and recovery. The human evidence is interesting in places, mixed in others, and very dependent on what type of Cordyceps was actually studied.
First, Cordyceps is not one single ingredient
Cordyceps can refer to different fungi and different preparations. Two names you will see frequently are Ophiocordyceps sinensis, which was formerly called Cordyceps sinensis, and Cordyceps militaris. There are also cultured products such as Cs-4 that have been used in human studies.
A study on one of those preparations cannot automatically be used as proof for every product that says Cordyceps on the label. That becomes particularly important when you start comparing research.
Why did Cordyceps become associated with energy?
Cordyceps has a long history of traditional use, including use around fatigue and vitality. Modern research has looked at exercise capacity, oxygen use, endurance, recovery and other physiological measures. That research is the reason the words energy and stamina appear so often beside Cordyceps. It does not mean those outcomes have been consistently proven in humans.
Some studies are encouraging
A 2010 randomized, double-blind study looked at a Cs-4 preparation in adults aged 50 to 75 over 12 weeks. Researchers found improvements in two measures related to exercise threshold, metabolic threshold and ventilatory threshold. They did not find a significant improvement in VO2 max. That is useful because it suggests something may have changed in submaximal exercise performance, but it is not the same as showing that Cordyceps universally improves aerobic fitness.
Other studies found very little
A 2004 trial in trained male cyclists tested 3 grams per day of Cs-4 for five weeks. There was no improvement in VO2 peak, ventilatory threshold or endurance time-trial performance compared with placebo. That result matters just as much as the positive ones, and it shows why I would not want to write an Urban Calm article saying Cordyceps boosts endurance and leave it there.
What do the newer reviews say?
A 2026 review looked specifically at human research on Cordyceps militaris and exercise. It found five intervention studies published between 2017 and 2024 involving 321 participants. Some reported improvements in selected performance or recovery outcomes, but the overall results were inconsistent. The researchers pointed to small sample sizes, differences in study design, different exercise protocols, varying preparations and the use of multi-ingredient formulas as major limitations.
That is probably the most useful summary of the Cordyceps evidence today. There are enough signals to keep studying it. There is not enough consistency to treat the outcome as settled.
A new 2026 study adds another interesting piece
A randomized crossover trial published in 2026 gave 12 recreationally active young men either 1 gram of standardized Cordyceps militaris extract or placebo before a maximal cycling test. The Cordyceps condition was associated with faster reaction time after exercise and higher resting oxygen consumption. It did not improve peak exercise oxygen consumption, and most physiological measures during exercise did not differ between conditions.
It is a small study, but I like what it shows about this category. Research can produce an interesting result without proving the marketing headline people expected.
What about the study that showed better VO2 max?
There is also a randomized study involving a mushroom blend that contained Cordyceps militaris. After three weeks, researchers reported improvements in VO2 max and time to exhaustion. The important detail is that participants were given a mushroom blend, not isolated Cordyceps. That makes it difficult to say how much of the result came specifically from the Cordyceps component. This is another reason reading past the study headline matters.
Does Cordyceps coffee give you energy?
This is where coffee makes the question even more complicated. Urban Calm is caffeinated coffee. Caffeine has a well-established acute effect on alertness, so if someone drinks Onward or Lioness and feels more awake afterward, it would be unreasonable to automatically credit the Cordyceps. The coffee, serving size, sleep, food, hydration and individual caffeine response all matter.
That does not make Cordyceps irrelevant. It just means we should not take a feeling someone has after a caffeinated drink and pretend it proves a mushroom effect.
Species, preparation and dose matter
The Cordyceps studies I just described do not all use the same thing. Some involve Cs-4, some involve Cordyceps militaris, some use mycelium, some use extracts, some use several grams per day and some combine Cordyceps with other ingredients. That is why I think the label matters almost as much as the mushroom name.
Urban Calm uses an organic 100% fruiting body mushroom extract and is transparent about the Cordyceps being part of a finished coffee product. Our coffee was not the intervention in those exercise studies. That distinction is important.
Onward or Lioness?
Cordyceps appears in two Urban Calm blends, and they could hardly be more different as coffees. Onward is our light roast with Chaga and Cordyceps. Lioness is our espresso roast with Lion's Mane and Cordyceps.
If you are interested in Cordyceps, you do not need to choose between them based on which one sounds more energetic. Choose based on the coffee. Onward is lighter and better suited to someone who already prefers light roast. Lioness is bold and built for someone who likes espresso roast or a stronger coffee profile. The same mushroom can fit into two very different cups.
What the current research says about tolerability
Cordyceps preparations used in human trials have generally been described as well tolerated, although the research base is much smaller than it is for common foods. That is useful background, but it does not change the central point of the article: different Cordyceps preparations cannot be treated as one interchangeable research ingredient.
Where I land on Cordyceps
I think Cordyceps is a good example of why the middle ground is usually more interesting than the marketing extremes. It is not a guaranteed performance enhancer, and it is not an ingredient with nothing behind it. There are human studies showing interesting results in exercise thresholds, recovery and other measures. There are also controlled studies showing no meaningful improvement.
The 2026 reviews are still describing the human evidence as limited and inconsistent. That is enough for me to say Cordyceps is worth following. It is not enough for me to promise that your morning coffee will make you run faster. For Urban Calm, it fits much better as an interesting functional mushroom built into a coffee you were already going to enjoy.
Keep learning
- Does Mushroom Coffee Have Caffeine?
- Mushroom Extract vs. Mushroom Powder
- Fruiting Body vs. Mycelium
- Explore Urban Calm Mushroom Coffee
Research sources
- Travel Alberta - The Last of Us filming locations in Alberta
- 2024 review of Ophiocordyceps-ant biology
- Parcell et al. 2004 - trained cyclists
- Chen et al. 2010 - exercise threshold measures
- Hirsch et al. - mushroom blend exercise study
- Jedrejko et al. 2026 - human exercise review
- 2026 randomized crossover study
