Our story
Real Herb Flavor. Straight from the Jar.
A spoonful of our basil tastes like basil — green, sweet, peppery, the way it does the minute you tear a leaf. No washing. No chopping. No half-used bunch turning to slime in the crisper.
We're a family business that got obsessed with one question: why does convenient always have to mean worse?
Our roots
A Family Business, Run by the Family.
Jim Bates started Psychedelic Foods in 2013. He’d spent years in produce sales, learning the business from the inside — so when a Minnesota retailer asked for a line of dried peppers, he built it. Dried mushrooms followed, made to fit right into their fresh herb set. From there, the line kept growing, one useful item at a time, always with the same goal: make life easier for everyday cooks.
More than a decade later, it’s still a family company. Jim still runs it the way he started it — in before sunrise, hands on all day, working alongside the small team he sees every morning.
We’re small enough to do the whole job ourselves. We source the herbs, chiles and mushrooms. We pack, label and box every jar. If it left here, one of us handled it.
The rule hasn’t changed since day one: get good product, treat it with care, and stand behind it. Small isn’t a limitation — it’s the point.
If we can’t do it well, we don’t do it. That’s the whole business plan.
The problem
A Fridge Full of Wilted Herbs.
A recipe wanted one tablespoon of cilantro. The store sold a whole bunch. A week later we were scraping something green and sad out of the crisper — again.
Everyone accepts this. We didn't want to.
What we do
Picked at Peak. Flavor Locked In.
Most dried herbs are dried slowly, with heat. Above a certain point, that heat drives off the delicate aromatic oils that make basil taste like basil — which is why supermarket dried basil tastes like a rumor of the real thing.
We pull moisture out fast, at low temperature, instead. Freeze-dried for our shelf-stable ShakerZ; slightly dried and kept refrigerated for Herb BlastZ, which trades some shelf life for a texture and aroma even closer to just-picked. Either way, the water leaves and the flavor stays.
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Picked at Peak
Harvested at their most flavorful. Never early, never rushed.
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Dried, Not Cooked
Moisture out fast, at low temperature, so the oils, color and aroma stay put.
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Comes Alive as You Cook
A splash of water or a hot pan brings it right back.
No compromise
Four Things We Refuse to Skip.
Little things, done right, are the whole product. Four we're proud of.
A Little Goes Further.
One tablespoon of fresh basil becomes one teaspoon of ours — the standard three to one, same as any dried herb. What changes is what is in that teaspoon: freeze-drying keeps the color, the aroma and the oils that hot-air drying cooks off. Add them near the end, like you would fresh.
(Woody herbs — rosemary, thyme, sage — stay potent when dried. Start a little under and taste.)
Mushrooms That Out-Savory Fresh Ones.
This one's real chemistry. Drying a mushroom raises its guanylate — an umami compound that multiplies the savoriness of everything around it rather than just adding to it. Soak them and that compound goes into the water, so the soaking liquid becomes a broth worth more than most stock you'd buy. Use the mushrooms. Then use the liquid.
You Can See the Difference.
Open our basil next to a heat-dried jar. Ours is still green. Green isn't the flavor itself — it's the tell. Chlorophyll and aromatic oils break down under the same conditions, so a leaf that kept its color is a leaf that wasn't cooked. We dry at low temperature, for exactly that reason.
Whole Chiles, Never Pre-Ground Dust.
An intact pod keeps its oils sealed inside. Grinding exposes them to air, and they start going the day it happens — which is why pre-ground chile powder tastes flat and vaguely dusty. Ours stay whole until you're ready, each one rated by Scoville range so you can pick your heat. Sweet and mild up to the Carolina Reaper, which held the world record for a decade.
Four ways to bring it
A Little Jar for Every Job.
ShakerZ
Freeze-dried single herbs and blends for the pantry. Concentrated, zero prep, always on hand.
ShroomZ
Dried gourmet mushrooms, delicate oyster to deep porcini. Umami on demand, plus a free broth every time.
Herb BlastZ
Slightly dried herbs, kept in the fridge. The closest thing to just-picked, minus the wilting.
PepperZ
Whole dried chiles, sweet-and-mild to genuinely dangerous. How hot can you go?
The name
Why “Psychedelic”?
Fair question — and no, there's nothing funny in the jars. The name is about what happens when real flavor hits your food: bold, vivid, a little wild. A Tuesday dinner should be exciting. That's the whole idea behind Mind-Bending FlavorZ.
What we stand for
Simple Rules.
Real Flavor
Dried at its peak. Never watered down.
No Waste
Flavor that keeps for months, not days.
No Fuss
No washing, no chopping. Just the good part.
Great flavor shouldn't be seasonal — and it shouldn't end up in the trash.
Mind-Bending FlavorZ for Your Kitchen.
Real flavor, ready when you are. Pick a jar and see for yourself.