How Cylocybe started.

Hi everyone, and thanks for taking the time to check out this page. If you're new here, we're Cylocybe.

We are based in the UK, and for years we struggled to get hold of good quality spores without getting clobbered by huge international shipping and customs fees. If you are a mushroom enthusiast over here, you probably know the feeling.

We wanted to put an end to that. We created this shop in 2017 to bring spores to the UK because there weren't any other UK shops (the only similar kind of business was RedEyeFrog which had closed down the year or two before - amongst a thousand other products, they sold GT and B+ syringes but mushrooms weren't their focus at all). We started this site because of a passion for mushrooms, not because we seen someone else making bank.

Spores are our bread and butter. Our Psilocybe (magic) mushroom spores are for collecting, research and microscopy only, never for cultivation. Our gourmet and edible mushroom supplies are the grow it yourself side of the shop, and those are perfectly legal to grow.

A shop with soul

It's not "just business" for us and we don't play by the same rule book as others. We spend our time innovating the ideas that have shaped this scene from the start. We don't spend our time spending.

The idea was simple. Give people a varied selection of products, delivered quickly and at low cost. Our prices are fantastic and our quality is even better.

We might grate on you, but we don't pretend to be someone we aren't. This is a shop with soul, and when you buy from here you aren't buying from a corporation, you're buying from the folk who have dominated this UK scene for years just by being ourselves and releasing banger after banger of products.

We're here for the people. The people with a conscience. The people who can look at Gaza and call it a genocide. We're here for the people who want spores because they are looking for something deeper.

We care about your privacy. Whether you care about yours or not, we do. We know the stigma around this hobby, these days it's hard to trust any site. But we challenge you: Scan our website with a privacy tool and you won't even find a Google cookie... Morels-over-money.

How Clean

Watering down spore syringes until you can barely spot a spore with your eyes and making out that is how a syringe should be is common practice across the scene. Vendors can buy spore prints from the guy down the street, use a home-built flowhood with old HEPA filters (if you're lucky), fill syringes with dirty hands and cap them off with cheap ten-for-a-penny black adhesive dispensing syringe caps that shouldn't be anywhere near this hobby, then throw in a few pence worth of cartoon stickers, a pack of Haribo and charge you close to £20 for the pleasure.

Our syringe caps alone can cost more than another shop's entire syringe with the spores in it. We use an ISO4 Laminar Flow Hood (ULPA, not HEPA) for ultimate cleanliness as well as free UK delivery on orders of £10 or more. We want the experience to be as good as our products.

And yet, we can still make a profit. How? We don't have the same outgoings from renting the business unit we had for 5 years, the shipping containers, the £1K per month in gas cylinders or paying our staff £20 an hour + bumper bonuses - we do everything ourselves now. Just the two founders. Not only has our product quality improved, but our prices on kits has dropped as well. This is the way we should have ran Cylocybe from the beginning.

You are not a number to us

Nobody here gets treated like an order number. We like the personal side of this, and we will always take the time to talk to anyone who gets in touch.

Honestly, it makes our day when a fellow mycologist drops us a message, especially when they are happy with their order. Hearing kind words about our service never gets old.

The goal has always been simple. Brilliant customer service alongside the biggest and best mushroom spore collection out there. With your support we keep getting closer to it, and we keep making the shop better for everyone.

Mycologists everywhere

To everyone outside the UK, we have not forgotten about you. We are always reaching out to the brilliant, passionate mycology community around the world, and the dream for Cylocybe has always been to become a spore vendor that people everywhere trust and actually like.

We have put a lot of work into finding the best worldwide shipping options too, keeping costs down without cutting corners on speed or care.

Cylocybe is our lives

Now you know who we are, and what we stand for. This shop isn't a regular shop - our top selling products are both natural and stigmatised and cause us a world of pain not being able to accept card payments, PayPal and all the rest of it. If we opened any other shop, life would be easier. But, that is the hand we've been dealt and we are resilient creatures running Cylocybe for you guys.

We will often close shop to catch up with orders when we get too busy - we do not hire staff anymore out of choice. We work from home now (thank the mushroom Gods) and our lab is right here with us. All of our equipment and machinery is right here with us too. Cylocybe is our lives - there is no home time.

This is where we are, and it works well for us.

Want to say hello?

If you would like to get in touch, please use our contact form or the messenger in the lower right and we will get back to you.

Mush love and peace,
cylocybe.co.uk