The Magic Of Mexicana Cubensis Shrooms: Dosage, Effects, & Growing Tips
There are many Psilocybe cubensis strains that originate from Mexico — but few compare with the potency of this beast 👹
The Mexicana strain (Psilocybe cubensis) isn’t to be confused with the Psilocybe mexicana, which is a different species entirely.
The Mexicana cubensis strain is touted as a classic strain that originated from, you guessed it, Mexico, as a third-generation isolation from shrooms that grow indigenous to the country.
As a P. cubensis shroom, the Mexicana is an easy magic mushroom to cultivate.
This strain has faster colonization than most cubensis shrooms, which makes them a beginner-friendly option. And you might enjoy that this variety has some slight physical variations in the mushroom fruits and is more potent than your typical Mexican magic mushroom.
In this article, you’ll understand what the Mexicana strain is, what you can expect from your shroom experience, and how to grow it successfully.
Mexicana Shroom Specs
| Potency | Moderate to Potent |
| Cultivation | Easy |
| Species | Psilocybe cubensis |
| Substrate Recommendation | Rye Grain, Manure, BRF, PWS, Concentrated Flour, Various Grains |
| Sold By | Spores 101 (🇺🇸/🇨🇦), Miracle Farms (🇺🇸/🇨🇦), Sporeslab (🇨🇦), The Magic Mushrooms Shop (🇪🇺) |
History of the Mexicana Strain
This strain is believed to be an isolation of one of the psilocybin-containing mushrooms the famous Mazatec mushroom healer Maria Sabina used in her spiritual ceremonies — but we can’t know this for sure as she did use multiple types of entheogenic mushrooms in her practice.
Sabina’s use of psilocybin mushrooms would gain widespread attention in the late 1960s after she invited R. Gordon Wasson and his wife to a traditional mushroom ceremony, which Wasson would later document and publish in Life Magazine, introducing magic mushrooms to the Western World.
Potency & Psilocybin Content
There is no quantitative data for the specific potency of this strain (yet). But from our own testing, backed up by the reports we’ve been able to find online, this mushroom is POTENT. We believe the average for this shroom falls somewhere between 1.2 and 2% of total tryptamines.
While the genetics of a strain can play a key role in determining how potent they become, mycologists believe that optimal growing conditions and harvesting are even more essential for potency.
Typical cubensis mushrooms contain anywhere from 0.5–1% psilocybin content in dry weight, and there’s no way to really test this in home-grown shrooms without submitting your sample to a specialized lab.
Some of the best data we’ve obtained regarding potency so far comes from Oakland Hyphae — a black-owned, grassroots organization that runs the bi-annual Psilocybin Cup.
This competition allows growers to compete for the highest potency and shroom sizes. Samples are submitted and run through high-performance chromatography to determine their psilocybin, psilocin, and total tryptamine concentrations.
Unfortunately, no Mexicana samples have been submitted thus far into the competition.
Where To Buy Mexicana Cubensis Shrooms
The Mexicana cubensis spores aren’t as easy to come by as the Golden Teacher. Still, if you can get a hold of them, they’re a treat to grow and reward you with some unique physical variations in the mushrooms. Do it right, and you’ll have an impressive harvest.
Here are some spore and growkit vendors to check out:
- If you live in the United States — MYYCO, Spores 101, Miracle Farms
- If you live in Canada — Spores 101, Sporeslab, Planet Spores
- If you live in Europe — The Magic Mushrooms Shop (🇪🇺), Shiny Spores (🇬🇧)
→ View all spore vendors & grow kit suppliers
Similar Strains: Mexicana Cubensis
The Mexicana strain shares a lot of similarities with other Mexican-origin mushroom strains. It’s most closely related to the Huatla (Oaxaca) strain, but there are numerous others as well:
Huautla (Oaxaca) Magic Mushroom
Huaulta (Oaxaca) shrooms grow native to Mexico and have a long-rooted history with the Mazatec peoples of the Oaxaca region.
This is a P. cubensis strain that famous mushroom priestess Maria Sabina was also said to have cultivated for her psychedelic rituals.
If you’re looking for a gentler, beginner experience with psychedelic shrooms, we’d recommend starting with the Oaxaca strain. These don’t tend to be as potent as other P. cubensis strains, which means it’s not as easy to overdo the doses.
Lab tests of the Huaulta shroom show that its average psilocybin and psilocin levels are 0.47% and 0.01%, respectively (in dried mushrooms).
Because these shrooms aren’t as potent, they’re less likely to cause a negative experience for first-time users and are much gentler on the mind and body.
Golden Teacher
Golden Teacher shrooms are perhaps the most famous of the Mexican magic mushrooms — new mushroom users and experienced psychonauts alike appreciate Golden Teachers for its consistent and powerful high that’s gentle on the body.
Growing Golden Teachers from spores is relatively easy since they’re usually always in stock by most major spore vendors, are resistant to contamination, and are known to yield substantial harvests.
Escondido
The Escondito strain was collected from somewhere in the Puerto Escondito region of southern Mexico.
This mushroom is regarded as one of the easiest to grow but is also one of the weaker members of the Mexican strains.
Teonanacatl
The Teonanacatl strain has been on the market for a long time. It’s believed to have first been offered by Ralphster’s Spores but is now available all over the world. This mushroom is revered for its formidable potency — which is well above average for Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms.
Matias Romero
This strain is named after the village of Matias Romero in Oaxaca, Mexico. It’s a little more difficult to grow and can be sensitive to unoptimized growing environments.
The potency of this strain is about average for what you can expect from Psilocybe cubensis.
Guadalajara
These potent mushrooms are susceptible to mold and bacteria, so keeping the growing environment clean is critical. But it’s worth the effort because the mushrooms the Guadalajara strain produces are both very large and very potent.
MexiCube
This strain is one of the only members of the Mexican cubensis strains that produce light colored spots on the caps as they grow (almost Amanita muscaria-like). The MexiCube mushrooms are average in terms of potency — but there have been reports of super-potent samples collected when grown under perfect conditions.
Bix Mex
This is another mushroom that often gets attributed as a strain of Psilocybe mexicana but is in fact a Psilocybe cubensis. The Bix Mex mushroom strain used to be one of the staples on the market — everybody was growing it. But today it’s grown out of favor and it’s surprisingly difficult to find the spores online.
Mexican Albino
The Mexican Albino is a leucistic (not a true albino) Mexican mushroom strain. It’s unclear exactly which strain this mushroom was derived from, or if it was collected as-is in the wild. Some reports suggest the infamous Mushroom John Allen collected this white-colored mushroom during his travels through the country — but we haven’t been able to corroborate these claims as of yet.
Psilocybe mexicana
This isn’t a close relative, but it’s often what this mushroom gets confused for.
The Psilocybe mexicana is not a cubensis shroom at all but an entirely different species native to North and Central America.
Its irregular, oblong-shaped mushroom caps and hardened fungal mycelium called sclerotia — which serves as food storage during times of stress or unfavorable growing conditions — are what distinctly set it apart from the cubensis species.
The Psilocybe mexicana is also said to be one of the mushrooms Maria Sabina used in her mushroom ceremonies and is one that was isolated by Roger Heim from a sample sent from Valentina Pavlovna Wasson and Roger Wasson.
The potency of these shrooms is weaker than P. cubensis shrooms, containing 0.25 psilocybin and 0.25 psilocin on average, whereas cubes can have 0.5–2%.
How To Grow Mexicana Magic Mushrooms
One of the most notable characteristics of growing Mexicana cube mushrooms is that it’s relatively easy; they’re not prone to contamination, can thrive in a variety of substrates, and have a fast colonization time of 10-12 days.
For those new to shroom cultivation with minimal supplies, the PF-Tek method is the best approach for growing Mexicana magic mushrooms.
To get started, you’ll need to purchase some supplies (though not as much as other methods), but luckily you can find all the equipment at your local garden center and hardware stores for under $80.
The PF-Tek method uses glass jars with sterilized substrate — cereal grains like rye grain work well for this — for the mycelium to colonize.
If you purchased the spore syringe, you’ll innoculate your jars containing your sterilized substrate and leave them in a dark, slightly warmer (86℉ or 30℃) environment to colonize.
It’s important that you maintain a sterile environment through every step of this.
Although Mexicana is fairly resistant to contamination, you still want to give the spores a fighting chance, so use gloves, wear a mask, and disinfect your working environment and tools.
With a 20 cc spore syringe, you should be able to colonize 6 L or 13 pints of the substrate.
The Mexicana strain is fast colonizing, so you’ll start to see white, whispy mycelium taking over your jars in 10–12 days. At this point, your substrate cakes are ready for the fruiting chamber.
Mexicana enjoys a warmer and more humid environment of about 80℉ (27 ℃).
It’s not too picky of a shroom, so you can get away with some fluctuations in temperature and humidity. In about 14 days, you’ll see the fruits of your labor in the form of little pinheads.
Do your best not to touch them and let them be. They’ll eventually grow and shoot up to form long, 3–5 inch mushrooms.
They’re ready to harvest once the mushroom caps open up. Simply squeeze the shroom at the base to pick it off the cake.
You can expect to get three to four flushes from these cakes, with each flush producing fewer and fewer shrooms.
Eventually, the cakes will succumb to mold, so you must toss them out and sterilize all your equipment again before starting on a new batch.
How to Dose Mexicana Mushrooms
Unless you send a sample of your harvest to a lab, it’s impossible to know just how strong your shrooms are, but here are some general guidelines to help you navigate your experience.
- Light recreational dose — 0.25 – 1 g
- Medium recreational dose — 1 – 2.5 g
- Strong recreational dose — 3 – 5 g
- Spiritual dose — 5 g +
While these are the advised recommendations, it’s worth mentioning that dosing shrooms is a personal affair, as the experience will largely depend on the individual’s genetics, experience with shrooms, mindset, and setting.
Mexicana mushrooms are said to be more potent than your Golden Teacher mushroom, so go easy on the dosing and start with a lower dose and ease into stronger doses.
You can always take more shrooms, but if you accidentally take too much, there’s no going back, and you’ll have to ride out your trip.
Related: Our handy magic mushroom dosage calculator
Frequently Asked Questions About the Mexicana Cubensis Strain
1. What are Mexicana cubensis mushrooms?
Mexicana cubensis mushrooms is a strain of Psilocybe cubensis magic mushrooms native to Mexico that produce psychoactive effects.
These mushrooms are a distinct species from the Mexicana psilocybin mushrooms that grow sclerotia.
However, these Mexicana cubensis shrooms belong to the same species of Golden Teacher shrooms, the Psilocybe cubensis mushroom, which is the most common species of magic mushroom.
2. What are the effects of Mexicana shrooms?
The effects of the Mexicana shroom can depend on the individual and the dosage, but Mexicana shrooms are known to have an above-average potency.
Users report auditory and visual hallucinations, changes in perception, altered mood, euphoria, and a connectedness with nature under the influence of them.
3. How long does the trip last with Mexicana cube shrooms?
You should start to feel the effects of Mexicana magic mushrooms within 30 minutes to an hour after initial ingestion.
The effects of psilocybin mushrooms typically last 4–6 hours, depending on the dose, with the peak of experience around the 2–3 hour mark.
4. What is the recommended dosage for Mexicana cubensis mushrooms?
The recommended dose can depend on the user’s tolerance and the experience they’re looking to achieve with Mexicana magic mushrooms.
Although the growing conditions play a big role in how strong your mushrooms turn out, Mexicana is known to have above-average potency, so you should dose with a lighter hand to avoid going overboard.
The standard psychoactive mushroom dose is around 2–3 grams with these Mexicana shrooms.
5. Are there any potential side effects when taking Mexicana shrooms?
Like any psychedelic, Mexicana shrooms have the potential to produce side effects. But as long as the shrooms were cultivated properly, you shouldn’t have to worry about toxicity.
Some of the potential risks of taking any psychoactive mushroom include feeling overwhelmed or stressed from the psychedelic experience. It can induce feelings of paranoia, anxiety, and panic attacks, especially if the individual is in a poor state of mind or in a stressful environment.
It’s also worth mentioning that psilocybin can interact with medications and mental health conditions, so you should not take these shrooms lightly.
