How to Tell Real Cordyceps from Fake? These Methods You Must Master

In the face of the numerous and varied cordyceps specialty stores on the market, many consumers find it very difficult to tell real Cordyceps from fake. Experts offer consumers tips: real and fake Cordyceps can be easily distinguished by three aspects: “shape”, “color” and “smell”.

Grass shape: Cordyceps has a body shaped like a silkworm, generally with only one “grass head”, and very rarely with multi-branched “grass heads”. The base of the grass head is relatively thick, tapering toward the end, with a length between 0.1 and 4 cm. The “worm body” has 8 pairs of legs, with a tail like a silkworm's tail, generally 1.6 to 4 cm in length, most of them 1.6 to 1.9 cm, while cordyceps between 5.6 and 6.5 cm is rarely seen. The surface of cordyceps is rough, with obvious ring patterns; dried cordyceps is brittle and breaks easily. After cordyceps is broken, the cross-section has a hollow or light gray small horseshoe-shaped mark. The whole branch of cordyceps is mostly slender or slightly curved in shape.

Grass color: The exterior of Cordyceps is earth yellow to brownish yellow, the head is yellow-red, and most “grass heads” are black in color, slender, with a flat cross-section. Cordyceps is considered best when the worm body is clean yellow in color, glossy, plump and large, with a yellow-white cross-section, not hollow, with a short stroma, and free of mildew and impurities.

Grass smell: After Cordyceps is sealed and then opened, it smells of a relatively strong fishy odor.

In addition, experts point out that there are more than 300 varieties of Cordyceps worldwide, and about 60 domestically in China. However, only the Chinese Cordyceps, formed by the Chinese cordyceps fungus infecting bat moth larvae, has medicinal value, and it is distributed only in the alpine meadows of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its marginal areas of our country. Others are not authentic Cordyceps. Some people pass off Cordyceps hawkesii, which grows wild in Hunan, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Anhui and other places, and Xinjiang cordyceps as Cordyceps. Among these fake Cordyceps, Cordyceps hawkesii is whitish in color, and its middle four legs are not very prominent; after taking it, symptoms such as dizziness and vomiting may occur; Qiongshan cordyceps produced in Sichuan has no medicinal effect at all, and cicada pupa grass produced in Yunnan, as well as cordyceps militaris produced in Jilin, Hebei, Shaanxi and other provinces, although also called northern Cordyceps, are all different from Cordyceps.