Matsutake Extract
Matsutake extract is a concentrated preparation of the fruiting body of Tricholoma matsutake, the pine mushroom, a mycorrhizal fungus that grows in symbiosis with the roots of pine and, in China, with oak and other broadleaf species. The defining commercial fact about it is that the fungus has never been brought into reliable cultivation: it depends on a living host tree and a specific soil community, so every kilogram of raw material is wild collected and supply is seasonal, variable and expensive.
The extract is standardised on polysaccharide content, principally beta-glucans and heteropolysaccharides from the fungal cell wall, in common with other mushroom extracts. What sets matsutake apart is its aroma, an unusually intense spicy-pine character carried by methyl cinnamate together with 1-octen-3-ol, the general mushroom alcohol. These are volatile and are largely lost in a conventional hot water extraction, so an aroma-bearing matsutake product and a polysaccharide-standardised extract are made by different routes.
The dried extract is a light brown to brown fine powder with a faint savoury odour and a bland taste, dissolving in warm water to a slightly hazy, mildly viscous solution. It is hygroscopic and cakes on exposure to humidity. Because the raw material is wild collected, batch to batch variation in polysaccharide content and in trace element profile is considerably wider than for cultivated mushroom extracts, and lot testing rather than reliance on a standing specification is the normal practice.
We source bulk Matsutake Extract from top China manufacturers for our partners. The manufacturer is in Shaanxi. A smaller requirement can ship in a combined container with other ingredients.
Please send the grade you need, the volume and your destination port, and we will come back with a solution and a price.
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- Function
- Plant extract
Specifications
| Item | Specification |
|---|---|
| Source | Tricholoma matsutake wild collected fruiting body |
| Appearance | Light brown to brown fine powder |
| Total Polysaccharide | ≥ 30.0% |
| Beta-Glucan by Enzymatic Method | ≥ 15.0% |
| Identification | Conforms by DNA identity testing of source material |
| Loss on Drying | ≤ 6.0% |
| Ash | ≤ 8.0% |
| Lead | ≤ 1.0 mg/kg |
| Arsenic | ≤ 1.0 mg/kg |
| Radioactive Caesium | Complies with destination market limits |
| Total Plate Count | ≤ 10,000 cfu/g |
| Yeast and Mould | ≤ 100 cfu/g |
| E. coli | Negative in 1 g |
| Salmonella | Negative in 25 g |
Common Markets Grades
Grades are quoted on total polysaccharide by colourimetric method, commonly 10, 20, 30 or 50 percent, and increasingly on beta-glucan by enzymatic method, which returns a lower and more meaningful figure. Ratio extracts at 10:1 or 20:1 without a marker claim are traded where a whole mushroom profile is wanted. Milled dried fruiting body is sold alongside the extracts and is a different product.
Because supply is wild, origin is a real specification point: Chinese material from Yunnan and the northeast, Korean and Japanese material all trade at different prices, and species substitution with the cheaper Tricholoma relatives is a recognised risk, so DNA identity testing of the raw material is a reasonable requirement rather than an unusual one. Aroma-bearing preparations, made by supercritical carbon dioxide extraction or by capturing the volatiles separately, are a distinct product line sold into flavour work rather than into supplements. Freeze dried grades are priced above spray dried grades where colour and aroma retention matter. Radioactivity testing appears on specifications for material from some collection regions.
Applications
- Immune support supplements in capsule and tablet form, the largest outlet for the polysaccharide grade
- Gift-market health products in China, Japan and Korea, often combined with lingzhi and cordyceps
- Savoury seasoning bases and soup powders, where the aroma fraction is the reason for using it
- Instant soup, congee and noodle seasoning sachets
- Functional beverages and oral liquids formulated on the standardised extract
- Flavour compositions for prepared foods needing an authentic wild mushroom note
- Traditional preparations and herbal soups in Chinese and Korean cooking
- Cosmetic serums and creams using the polysaccharide fraction as a humectant
- Mushroom blend supplements combining several fungal polysaccharide sources
China Manufacturers of Matsutake Extract
Top Matsutake Extract manufacturers in China.
Company names and logos are the property of the manufacturers themselves. They are listed here because our own directory records them as producing this ingredient. A listing is not an endorsement by them, and we do not represent them or speak on their behalf.
Regulatory Status
In the United States Tricholoma matsutake is an edible wild mushroom with an established history of food use, and dried mushroom is handled as a conventional food while extracts are marketed as dietary ingredients under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, with manufacture under 21 CFR Part 111. Wild collected fungi are subject to the general food safety requirements of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, and correct species identification is the principal hazard control, since misidentification of wild mushrooms is a recognised food safety issue.
In the European Union the position depends on the preparation. The mushroom itself has a history of consumption, but concentrated fungal extracts and purified polysaccharide fractions can fall within the scope of the novel food Regulation and should be checked against the specification rather than assumed to inherit the status of the whole mushroom; the Commission novel food catalogue records the status of individual fungal species. No health claim for matsutake appears on the EU register of authorised claims. Wild mushrooms are subject to the contaminant limits of the contaminants Regulation, and specific maximum levels for cadmium in cultivated and wild fungi apply, which matters because mycorrhizal species accumulate metals from forest soil. Maximum permitted levels of radioactive caesium in wild fungi from certain regions remain in force under the EU import controls introduced after the Chernobyl accident, and testing against those levels is part of the trade for wild mushroom material.
Manufacturing Process
Collection is the first and least controllable stage. Fruiting bodies are gathered by hand from pine and oak forest in autumn, ideally before the cap opens, then graded, cleaned of soil and needles and moved quickly into cold chain, since fresh matsutake deteriorates within days. Material destined for extraction is generally the lower commercial grades, opened or damaged mushrooms that will not command the fresh market price.
The mushrooms are sliced and dried in hot air at 50 to 60 degrees Celsius, or freeze dried where aroma retention matters, then milled to a coarse powder. Polysaccharide extraction is by hot water at 90 to 100 degrees Celsius in successive countercurrent stages, in some plants preceded by an enzymatic treatment with cellulase and chitinase to open the cell wall and raise yield. The liquor is centrifuged and filtered, then concentrated under vacuum in a falling film evaporator. Enrichment is by alcohol precipitation, adding ethanol to 70 or 80 percent so that the polysaccharides drop out while sugars, amino acids and salts remain in solution; the precipitate is redissolved and, for higher grades, deproteinised and ultrafiltered. The purified solution is standardised and spray dried or freeze dried, sieved and packed with a moisture barrier. Where an aroma-bearing product is the objective, dried mushroom is instead extracted with supercritical carbon dioxide at moderate pressure, which recovers the volatile fraction without heat and leaves the polysaccharides behind in the spent solids.
