Black Pearl Oyster Mushrooms, also known as Shimofuri Hiratake, are a hybrid between Japan's king oyster mushrooms and western pearl oyster mushrooms.

Black Pearl Oyster mushrooms are a culinary delight with a complex flavor profile. They are subtly sweet with robust umami notes and a hint of pepper in the aftertaste. Their unique taste and texture make them a versatile ingredient that can be used in a variety of dishes, from hearty soups to savory stir-fries.

Fruiting at cooler temperatures, 55-70 degrees (they can handle warmer temperatures, but you'll get the most ideal harvest from 55-70 degrees).

• Class: Agaricomycetes -Parasitic, pathogenic, symbiotic, or saprotrophic; most are terrestrial, with few aquatic members; all are mushroom-forming; spore cap has openings; contains 17 orders.
• Order: Agaricales - Most are saprotrophic, some are parasitic on plants (causing root rot), others are mycorrhizal; basidia produced in layers (hymenia) on the underside of fleshy fruiting bodies (basidiocarps), in tubes (boletes), or on gills (mushrooms).
• Family: Pleurotus small to medium-sized mushrooms which have white spores; gilled mushrooms
• Species: P. ostreatus

This kit is designed to help you learn to grow mushrooms at home without any special gear. They are fairly easy to work with and include instructions for growing them on a bag of precooked rice at home.

Each set includes detailed instructions, your mushroom culture, and a fungi word search. It’s a great project to do as part of your nature or biology studies or as an independent experiment. And they’re great for cooking with/eating or just looking at if you’re the non-mushroom-eating type.

There’s also an additional section to the instructions for using your leftover culture to grow even bigger mushrooms in larger quantities out of a bucket of straw if you’re interested in diving deeper after you grow them the first way.

This is a pretty flexible project age-wise, with the only caveat being that you’ll want adult supervision for the inoculation process for young students so that no fingers get poked. It’s an indoor project. You’ll need a bag of pre-cooked rice, rubbing alcohol, and some paper bandage tape.