The best magic truffles compared: which should you trip on?

Ten of the 16 varieties are our own — Mexicana, Pajaritos, Mokum, Tampanensis, Atlantis, Fantasia, Pandora, Utopia, Hollandia and Valhalla — and the other six come from outside producers: four from McSmart, plus High Hawaiians and Sex on the Beach. Potency runs the full 1-to-5 scale, but not evenly. Only Mexicana is rated 1 out of 5. Four varieties sit at 2, six at 3, three at 4, and two at the top: Valhalla and High Hawaiians, both 5 out of 5. Pack size barely varies: 14 of the 16 come in a 15 g pack, and only SugaShrooms and High Hawaiians come in 25 g. Inside our own line the pack size is identical across all ten, which leaves potency as the whole decision there.

If this is your first time, the rating matters more than anything on the packaging. Mexicana is the mildest truffle we grow at 1 out of 5, and Pajaritos, Mokum, Tampanensis and Atlantis all sit at 2 out of 5 — five varieties, all from our own line, all in 15 g packs. The finder treats this as a rule rather than a preference: answer that it's your first time and that you'll have a sitter, and nothing above 3 out of 5 is ranked at all; answer that you won't, and the list narrows to the 1s and 2s. No answer about the kind of trip you're after can push a stronger variety back into it. What the finder can't pick for you is the setting, and that is the part first-timers underestimate: a sober person you trust nearby, a place you know well, and a day with nothing you have to turn up for. How much to take is a separate question with its own answer — read our dosing guide in advance, not on the day itself.

For a first trip, Mexicana is the mildest truffle we grow — 1 out of 5, in a 15 g pack — and without a sitter the finder will not show you anything above 2 out of 5.

The potency figure on this page is a comparative position inside our own range, not a laboratory value and not a dose. It is anchored at both ends: Mexicana at 1 out of 5 is the mildest we grow, and Valhalla and High Hawaiians at 5 out of 5 are the strongest we sell. Everything else is placed between them from our catalogue data and each producer's own specification, then checked by hand. The middle is where choosing actually gets crowded — six of the 16 varieties are rated 3 out of 5, which is why pack size, brand and availability end up deciding between them, while three sit a step higher at 4 out of 5: Hollandia, Utopia and Dragon's Dynamite. A higher number does not make a variety better, and it does not tell you what an evening will be like. It says the variety is rated stronger by weight than the one below it, which is a narrower claim than it looks.

Potency here is a comparative 1-to-5 position inside our own range — Mexicana at 1, Valhalla and High Hawaiians at 5 — never a lab measurement and never a dose.

Ten of the 16 varieties are ours: Mexicana, Pajaritos, Mokum, Tampanensis, Atlantis, Fantasia, Pandora, Utopia, Hollandia and Valhalla. They are sold as bare strain names because that is what they are — variety names in the Azarius line, not third-party brands — and they share a single 15 g pack, so potency is the only variable inside our own range, which spans it end to end from Mexicana at 1 out of 5 to Valhalla at 5. The other six carry their producer's name. McSmart supplies four: SugaShrooms at 3 out of 5 in a 25 g pack, MushRocks and Pink Paradise at 3 out of 5 in 15 g, and Dragon's Dynamite at 4 out of 5 in 15 g. High Hawaiians is a brand in its own right and matches Valhalla at the top of the scale, in a 25 g pack. Sex on the Beach, at 3 out of 5, is grown on Dutch truffle farms and carries no producer brand of its own.

Take the house line when you want the full 1-to-5 range in one 15 g pack size; take a brand for what only it carries — the 25 g packs of SugaShrooms and High Hawaiians, or Dragon's Dynamite at 4 out of 5.

This is a buying question before it is a botany question. Truffles arrive ready to use in a sealed pack, so the decision ends once you have picked a variety, and the things you compare are the ones on this page: potency, pack size, brand. A magic mushroom grow kit is a project instead — you set it up, wait weeks for a first harvest, and compare kits on difficulty, expected yield and time rather than on potency and pack size. If you have a specific evening in mind, that points at the truffle range; if the growing is part of the appeal and the timing is open, that points at the grow kits, and our grow kit guide compares all 17 of those the same way this page compares 16 truffles. How the two formats compare on strength by weight, on texture and on shelf life is a different question again: our wiki article on sclerotia versus fruiting bodies answers it, and this page does not try to.

Buy truffles when you want something ready to use out of one pack; buy a grow kit when the growing is part of the point and weeks of waiting suit you.

Every figure on this page comes from the specification we hold per variety — potency rating, pack size and producer — checked by hand and dated in the byline with this section. Ranking is fit-based: the finder scores each variety against your four answers, so the top pick changes when your answers change, and nothing is promoted for being ours. Where two varieties score exactly the same, the Azarius one is listed first; that tie-break never overrides a difference in score. Out-of-stock varieties are never ranked above ones you can order, and varieties we can't ship to your country are left out of the ranking entirely. The first-trip caps are hard filters rather than preferences: tell the finder it's your first time and you won't have a sitter, and the stronger varieties are removed from the ranking, not moved down it.

The rules on magic truffles vary from country to country, and so do the rules on what may cross a border. We only ship truffles to countries where we can lawfully deliver them, so what you can order always depends on your delivery address. You must be 18 or older to order, and checking the rules that apply where you live is your responsibility.

How to dose magic truffles, step by step