Golden Teacher A lesson book on one cultivar
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Lesson book · checked 10 October 2026

Golden Teacher is a cultivar of Psilocybe cubensis

Golden Teacher is a name growers and shops use for one line of Psilocybe cubensis, the most widely cultivated psilocybin mushroom. It is a cultivar name for a line within a species, and almost nothing about its history has been documented. What can be documented fits into six short lessons, and each lesson ends with a few review questions so you can check what stayed.

Chalk drawing of a cluster of golden-capped mushrooms with one cut in half lengthwise

Timetable

6 lessons, one reader. Start anywhere; each lesson ends with review questions.

  1. Lesson 1 Name and origin Where the name Golden Teacher comes from, and what is documented 4 min4 review questions
  2. Lesson 2 Appearance What Golden Teacher mushrooms look like 4 min4 review questions
  3. Lesson 3 In a grow kit How Golden Teacher behaves in a grow kit 5 min4 review questions
  4. Lesson 4 Strength How strong is Golden Teacher? What has been measured 4 min4 review questions
  5. Lesson 5 Effects Golden Teacher effects as they are described 4 min4 review questions
  6. Lesson 6 The law Is Golden Teacher legal? The Netherlands, UK, Germany and US 5 min4 review questions
  7. Reader A composite Golden Teacher trip report Two composite Golden Teacher trip reports, one calm and one that turned difficult, built from patterns that recur in published experience reports. 3 mincomposite, labelled

1What you can say with confidence

  • Golden Teacher mushrooms are Psilocybe cubensis and contain psilocybin and psilocin, like every other cultivar of the species. See lesson 2.
  • Nobody has published where or when the culture first appeared. The usual story about its discovery pairs a name and a date that do not fit together. See lesson 1.
  • No laboratory has published a measurement of Golden Teacher itself. A cross with Golden Teacher as one parent came out in the middle of a 14-strain comparison in 2026. See lesson 4.
  • The mushrooms are illegal in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and under US federal law. In the Netherlands the grow kit is legal to buy, the mushrooms it produces are not. See lesson 6.

2Why a lesson book

Search for Golden Teacher and you mostly find shop pages and spore sellers that repeat the same few sentences: discovered in the 1980s, golden caps, a mild strain for beginners, a "teacher" that brings insight. Some of that is true of the whole species, some is marketing, and some cannot be checked at all. This site sorts those statements, one subject per lesson, and links the sources so you can read them yourself.

The lessons are short and build on each other, but you can start anywhere. Every lesson opens with what you should know by the end and closes with the key terms and a few questions. The reader adds a composite trip report, clearly labelled as such.

3Who publishes this

The site is published by the team behind the Dutch smartshop Dutch-Smart, which sells Golden Teacher grow kits. Product links go to that shop. The colophon explains how the lessons are put together. The information is for adults; laws differ per country, and the law lesson comes before any product.