It was the height of China‘s mushroom season in August 2023. Janet Yellen (D), the US Treasury Secretary, was in town for a four-day visit to strengthen diplomatic relations between both countries’ economies. On her first night in town, she and a group of colleagues went to a swanky restaurant chain in the province of Yunnan called Yi Zuo Yi Wang. Someone in her party allegedly ordered four plates of Jian Shou Qing, a local stir-fry dish featuring Lanmaoa asiatica, a mushroom from the Boletus genus.
She didn’t realize the mushrooms featured in the dish had psychedelic properties. “I went with this large group of people and the person who’d arranged our dinner did the ordering. There was a delicious mushroom dish; I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later,” she told CNN.
An assistant of Yellen’s confirmed that the treasury secretary ate the mushroom stir-fry at the restaurant. “I can tell you that none of us were affected by the mushrooms,” Yellen told CNN while laughing. Boletes are said to lose their psychedelic properties if they’re cooked properly. Yellen swears that the restaurant thoroughly cooked her shrooms.
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But Yellen’s nonchalance incited controversy. According to conservative media outlets, there were calls for her resignation due to concerns that eating psychedelic mushrooms unknowingly reflected questionable judgment. Others on the political right questioned whether it was actually an accident.
Yi Zuo Yi Wang loved the media frenzy. They even incorporated Yellen’s visit into its marketing strategy by posting signage stating that Yellen ate trippy mushrooms there. The restaurant chain was slammed for weeks, stating on social media that “colleagues from headquarters… turned into mushroom-cutting workers” to keep up with demand. Several publications reported that Yellen kicked off China’s psychedelic mushroom craze. The Jian Shou Qing dish sold out across the country as a result, Forbes reported.
Yunnan is one of the major fungi hubs of the world. Its economy is largely reliant on los hongos, thanks to the region’s lush, subtropical evergreen forest boasting 900 edible species.
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According to the China Daily, the Yunnan Mushuihua Wild Mushroom Trading Center, a dedicated fungi market, draws around 20,000 visitors daily, surging to nearly 60,000 during peak seasons. According to recent stats, the province’s wild fungi sector experienced significant growth, escalating from $2.9 billion (21 billion yuan) in 2021 to $3.4 billion (25 billion yuan) in 2022.
Mushrooms from the Boletus genus are considered toxic in China. And, although this fungi is anecdotally said to be psychedelic, it doesn’t contain psilocybin or psilocin as its psychoactive constituents. Instead, these mushrooms contain other mind-altering alkaloids, but even scientists are unsure about how and why they create psychedelic effects.
“Lanmaoa mushrooms are considered poisonous as they can be hallucinogenic,” Dr. Peter Mortimer, a professor at Kunming Institute of Botany, told CNN. “However, scientists have not, as of yet, identified the compounds responsible for causing the hallucinations. It remains a bit of a mystery, and most evidence is anecdotal. I have a friend who mistakenly ate them and hallucinated for three days.”
Last year, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Lanmaoa asiatica was cited as the leading cause of “psycho-neurological disorders” associated with mushrooms in the country. Additionally, the US Department of Energy cautioned that incorrectly consuming this mushroom can induce hallucinations, Forbes reported.
The most common effect people report experiencing from these psychedelic Bolete mushrooms is seeing “little humans” dancing around the room, causing people to try and catch them with their fingers, according to creator Zoey Xinyi Gong (@zoeyxinyigong), who posted a reel about the situation on Instagram. “The locals even call it ‘little human’ season.”
Although Boletes don’t contain psilocybin, the experience of seeing “little humans” is worth noting because Indigenous cultures in Mexico, specifically in the Mazatec tradition, call psilocybin mushrooms niños santos, which translates to “little saints.”
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Zoey Xinyi Gong said that because some of the mushrooms are psychedelic or toxic, the Chinese government “puts up posters in restaurants to warn their residents to not eat the poisonous / psychedelic mushrooms. But the mushrooms are so delicious that the locals love to risk [it].”
In 2022, a total of 404 individuals experienced “mushroom poisoning” in Yunnan. Of those 404, nine people died.
It is unclear what the classification of mushroom poisoning entails in China. Based on other reports, it appears that the Chinese government lumps in psychedelic effects under the umbrella of poisoning. It’s also unclear what mushrooms caused the nine deaths.
The good news is that Janet Yellen is still very mush alive.
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