The magic truffle market is rather a niche. Although Amsterdam is a beautiful city, rich in culture and history, many of us are aware of the true tourist attractions… Cannabis and magic truffles! If you are reading this RealChems blog and you have visited Amsterdam on vacation, you likely spent your holiday in one (or both) of the following ways.
- A) You sat awkwardly in one of the ‘‘coffee shops’’, probably not drinking any coffee and smoking copious amounts of Cannabis legally.
- B) You spent a night (or two) stumbling around the canals, nibbling on magic truffles and getting trippy in the streets.
There is no doubt in the mind of Amsterdam’s local community that the majority of the tourists come to the city to legally get high. In fact, the locals are so aware of it and, quite frankly, are so sick of it that they are pressuring the mayor of Amsterdam to stop the legal sale of Cannabis to tourists! However, that is a story/conversation for another day. Instead, I will be sharing my best tips for picking the right magic truffles for your trip.
When you go to a headshop in Amsterdam, you will probably get a few options for magic truffles. However, in this article, my tips will be aimed more at those purchasing online. When you are viewing an online headshop that sells truffles, they will likely have tons of options, making it difficult to decide. This is why I am here to help you!
In true promotional fashion, I will be using the truffles that we sell as examples for my tips! Let’s start with the basics before we get into it.
What are magic truffles?
The first question that always comes up is ‘‘What are magic truffles?’’. Magic truffles are naturally occurring truffles that contain a magical compound called Psilocybin!
By moi-même – Self-photographed, Public Domain, via Wikimedia
You may know what Psilocybin is already if you are familiar with magic mushrooms. It is the famous compound found in magic mushrooms that leads to a high. Psilocybin belongs to the Tryptaminne class of hallucinogens.
While Psilocybin gets a lot of hype, it isn’t the Psilocybin itself that gets you high. Upon ingestion, Psilocybin converts into Psilocin, which is the compound that is actually responsible for the famous magic mushroom high!
Magic truffles and magic mushrooms both have this psychoactive compound, meaning the effects are exactly the same. However, there are definitely some differences between the two naturally occurring phenomena. Magic truffles aren’t technically mushrooms. They are the sclerotia of Psilocybin mushrooms, making them technically different to mushrooms.
Very essentially, magic truffles are the masses of mycelium that contain the fruiting body. This body contains hallucinogenic chemicals. I suppose one could label magic truffles as underdeveloped magic mushrooms.
Basically, a magic truffle is a magic mushroom that never made its way above the Earth’s surface! Oh, and magic mushrooms are illegal pretty much everywhere! Magic truffles, on the other hand, are legal across Europe. But more on that soon.
What do magic truffles taste like?
If you have ever had a mouth full of magic mushrooms, then you know what death tastes like. It is quite funny and ironic that something as profound as magic mushrooms tastes as disgusting as they do. Magic truffles are not the tastiest things in the world, either! However, I do prefer the taste of magic truffles vs magic mushrooms. Each species of magic truffles has its own unique taste. Some taste like dirt while others have hints of lemon and citrus flavours. Most of them will leave a bitter and sour aftertaste in your mouth. I can recommend a few ways to eat truffles to minimize the bad taste.
1) Brownies! If you are eating truffles, brownies are a great way to mask the task. The fudgier the brownie and the darker the chocolate, the better it will do at over-powering the taste!
2) Tea! Boil some water, put it in a cup with a flavourful tea bag and let sit for 2-3 minutes. Then, you can put your truffles into your tea cup and let it sit for 15 minutes. Strain and drink! Just don’t boil your truffles or else your Psilocybin will break down from the heat and weaken the strength of your truffle tea.
3) Ginger! If you are really looking to minimize the taste of your truffles then you need to have them alongside food/drink that has flavour(s) that is more intense than the truffle flavour. Buy or make a pure shot of ginger and chase your handful of truffles with the shot. Of course, if you absolutely hate ginger shots than maybe the tea and/or brownie recommendation is more up your alley.
What do magic truffles look like?
Honestly… Magic truffles look gross. They resemble tiny dog turds. Appetizing, isn’t it? I am really selling you on these now, aren’t I? They taste disgusting and look like a chihuahua’s poop. Great! Aside from their suspicious outer appearance, you may be surprised to see tons of seeds embedded inside your truffles. Unlike magic mushrooms, magic truffles have very little water content and lack nutrients. This makes them hard and dense. As you may have guessed, they are always harvested underground.
Are magic truffles legal?
Once upon a time, magic mushrooms were legal for production, sale, possession and consumption in the Netherlands. However, on one very sad (December 1st 2008) Dutch lobbyists banned them in all cases. This left a gap in the market as well as a large group of independent growers who had to combat the reality of their lively hood being stripped from them. Logically, said growers decided to go elsewhere while being able to continue utilizing their knowledge on growing mushrooms.
It wasn’t long after the prohibition of magic mushrooms that the growers realised what move to make next. There are a handful of species of truffles that contain Psilocybin. All truffles have been and still are protected by European law as ‘luxury food’. Long story short, the magic mushroom growers of the Netherlands decided to start growing magic truffles and marketing them in the same way they did their mushrooms.
When Dutch growers were working with magic mushrooms, they would target tourists but didn’t receive much success. For some reason, the magic truffle route paid off and now it is common knowledge that you can go to the Netherlands and get high on magic truffles legally!
Since they are protected by European law and not just Dutch law, the growers in the Netherlands supply a lot of online stores that ship across the whole of Europe. Essentially, they are legal in Europe but not in other parts of the world… Yet!
How to pick the right magic truffles for your trip
Thanks to the European Union and its protection of these luxurious little bunches of magical mycelium, you can buy them and have them shipped to your home without any legal risks! Moreso, you can also pick from a wide variety of magic truffles. While having the options is all well and good, knowing how to pick the right ones and optimize your trip is another story.
Potency
One of the many nice things about buying magic truffles from a professional grower vs buying magic mushrooms from a street dealer is the consistency. Since these truffles are grown in very specific and controlled environments, their potency comes out pretty consistently. Especially when compared to purchasing from a dealer, which will likely lead to you possessing a mystery batch of mushrooms with an unknown strength. For those of you who have done magic mushrooms a handful of times, you know that one batch can be far more strong than the next batch you get your hands on. The only way to know the strength for sure is to eat them and find out!
With magic truffles, you know exactly what you are getting yourself into. While a typical dose of magic mushrooms is 2-5 grams, the dose with truffles is very different. Truffles are much weaker than magic mushrooms and therefore you will need to eat a larger dose than you may expect. This is why they are commonly sold in 15 gram boxes. While you can get them in bulk, not every online shop offers bulk deals.
As stated above, these truffles are heavy and dense. Since they are dense and contain less Psilocybin than most magic mushrooms, you will need between 3-5 grams to get wavy and 5-15 grams to trip properly. But this also really depends on which truffles you go for as they all host their own strengths. Each box will state the strength on the packaging as well as the suggested dose to have a light to heavy trip. Not only are the strengths and recommended doses extremely clear and predictable, but magic truffles also take optimization to the next level!
Rating System
At RealChems, we support the brand Mush Magic. They have been reliable and well-known growers in the magic truffles game for years. Something we really liked about this brand is that they offer rating scales for different aspects of your trip. They use a very straightforward 5-star rating system for each aspect. Here is what the rating system covers.
- Overall strength
- Visuals
- Philosophical
- Creativity
- Intensity
Let’s use Mexicana (the weakest of the species) as an example for this rating system. Here are the ratings this magic truffle species has been given by the growers.
Overall Strength – 2.5 Stars out of 5 Stars.
Visuals – 1 Star out of 5 Stars.
Philosophical – 3 Stars out of 5 Stars.
Creativity – 4 Stars out of 5 Stars.
Intensity – 2 Stars out of 5 Stars.
Each species that we sell is given ratings in these specific areas so that you can pick the perfect truffles, depending on what you are looking for in your trip. Before I wrap this up, I wanted to address one very strange magic truffle species that we get a lot of questions about due to its unique rating(s). Let’s talk about Valhalla truffles.
Valhalla is the strongest truffle species out of all the options at both RealChems and Mush Magic. Here are the ratings:
Overall Strength – 6 Stars out of 5 Stars.
Visuals – 6 Stars out of 5 Stars.
Philosophical – 6 Stars out of 5 Stars.
Creativity – 6 Stars out of 5 Stars.
Intensity – 6 Stars out of 5 Stars.
6 stars out of 5? How? Why? Let me explain! Mush Magic didn’t start out offering Valhalla as one of their options when they first started out. They had already figured out a trusted and established rating system for all of their truffles. Eventually, they began growing Valhalla truffles, which blew all of the other truffles and their strengths out of the park!
Instead of completely changing their whole rating system for the rest of their truffles because of a single species, they decided to just wack on an extra star to Valhallas ratings and call it a day! Plus, I think it also displays how much stronger these truffles are when compared to the rest. I can speak on behalf of this! If you want to trip absolute balls and not only meet but become God… Eat a pack of Valhalla truffles and thank me later!
Final thoughts
I could talk about magic mushrooms and magic truffles all day but I am going to end this with a few last thoughts. Make sure you do your research on truffles and get to know your options because there are a lot! Although I speak very highly of the Valhalla species, I definitely like to experiment and optimize my trips, which is why I love using magic truffles over magic mushrooms most of the time. Take your time learning about the species and (if you live in the EU) experiment without legal risk! As always, make sure that you take the proper trip preparations to minimize the chances of a bad trip.
Be safe, spread love and happy tripping!
