For Urban Calm founder Tara Duncan, mushroom coffee did not begin as a trend forecast. It began with a change in her own life.
Urban Calm was already rooted in specialty coffee and women-led sourcing when perimenopause changed some of the questions Tara was asking about her everyday routines. She was noticing changes in energy, focus, stress and sleep, experiences many women describe differently and with very different levels of severity during midlife.
Coffee was already part of her day. Rather than abandon a ritual she loved, Tara began researching functional mushrooms and asking whether that familiar cup could be made more purposeful without turning it into something that tasted or felt medicinal.
What Tara's story does, and does not, claim
Tara's experience is a founder story, not a clinical trial.
Urban Calm does not claim that Lion's Mane, mushroom coffee or any other food treats perimenopause, brain fog, anxiety, depression, sleep disorders or other medical conditions. Perimenopause is a biological transition with wide-ranging individual experiences, and people with troubling symptoms should discuss them with a qualified healthcare professional.
What Tara's experience did was create curiosity. She wanted to understand ingredients that were becoming part of the functional food conversation and decide whether they could belong in a coffee product she would genuinely want to drink.
Why Lion's Mane caught her attention
Lion's Mane, Hericium erinaceus, is an edible mushroom that has attracted research interest around the nervous system, cognition and mood.
That research was relevant to Tara's questions about midlife, but relevance is not proof. Much of what gets repeated online about Lion's Mane jumps too quickly from early studies to confident promises.
What human research actually shows
One frequently cited randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial from Japan studied a small group of adults with mild cognitive impairment. Participants receiving a specific Lion's Mane preparation showed improved cognitive scores during the 16-week intervention compared with placebo, with scores decreasing after the intervention ended.
That is interesting, but the study was small, involved a specific preparation and did not study mushroom coffee or perimenopause.
Another small randomized study published in 2010 tested cookies containing Lion's Mane in women and reported changes in selected self-reported measures after four weeks. Again, the sample was small, the preparation was specific, and the findings should not be converted into a claim that Lion's Mane coffee treats anxiety, depression or menopause-related mood changes.
Read the original studies: Mori et al., 2009 and Nagano et al., 2010.
Why online Lion's Mane claims often outrun the evidence
There is a gap between these statements:
- "Researchers are studying compounds in Lion's Mane and have reported findings in small human trials."
- "This Lion's Mane coffee will improve your memory, cure brain fog or fix perimenopause symptoms."
The first can be accurate with context. The second goes much further than the evidence supports.
Study preparation, amount, duration and population all matter. A cup of coffee containing an ingredient with an interesting research history is not automatically equivalent to the intervention used in a clinical study.
How Lion's Mane became part of Urban Calm
Urban Calm uses Lion's Mane in two of its four mushroom coffees:
- Dreamer Dark Roast: Lion's Mane + Reishi
- Lioness Espresso: Lion's Mane + Cordyceps
Both use 100% fruiting body mushroom extracts with no mycelium-based mushroom ingredients, and Urban Calm's mushroom extracts are third-party tested.
The products are deliberately different coffees. Dreamer is a darker, richer roast; Lioness is an espresso profile. Tara did not want one functional formula poured into four interchangeable bags. The coffee still needed an identity.
Perimenopause also changed the brand story
There is another reason this chapter matters to Urban Calm. The coffee was already sourced through women-led farms in Colombia. Tara's own midlife transition added another women-centred layer to the company: women growing the coffee, a woman founder navigating a major stage of life, and customers looking for products that fit real routines rather than polished wellness fantasies.
That connection is part of why Urban Calm now talks more openly about the journey behind the mushroom coffees.
Coffee still comes first
Tara never wanted a beverage that asked customers to tolerate bad coffee because the ingredient panel looked impressive.
Urban Calm begins with specialty Colombian Arabica from TimanĂ¡, Huila and roasts it in Calgary. The mushroom extracts are built into that coffee experience, not used to replace it.
That is also why the lineup includes light, medium, dark and espresso roasts. If a product is going to become part of a daily ritual, taste matters.
What should women in midlife take from this?
Curiosity is reasonable. Certainty is not.
Lion's Mane is an interesting ingredient with a developing research literature. Tara's experience explains why it became personally meaningful to the Urban Calm story. Neither fact means mushroom coffee should replace medical care or established approaches to managing perimenopause symptoms.
If you are considering functional mushroom products and take medication, are pregnant or breastfeeding, or have a health condition, speak with a qualified healthcare professional about whether they fit your circumstances.
For a broader evidence overview, read Lion's Mane in Mushroom Coffee: What We Know and What We Don't. To read the full founder story, visit About Urban Calm.
This article is educational and is not medical advice.
