It has a strong, spicy aroma and firm flesh. Mushroom collectors wander among the Cascade Mountain forests of Northern California and Oregon, looking for small bulges or cracks in the soil that indicate a mushroom pushing its way upward. Using an old screwdriver or similar tool, the collector probes the forest floor, breaking off matsutakes and replacing the soil and duff. In Japan, the mushrooms are meticulously cleaned, resorted into more precise categories, and sold as a gourmet item to restaurants and stores. Chief executives are sometimes presented with a grade-one matsutake in a crystal case accompanied by two sake glasses.
Some people consider the matsutake to be an aphrodisiac.
Where big money can quickly be made, trouble often seems to follow. People who have never before heard of the matsutake are rushing in to grab their share. With too many people going after this limited resource, the race is on, and each matsutake picked is money in the pocket. Instead of gently probing and removing each mushroom, some pickers scrape and dig with long, pointed sticks, or even worse, use rakes. These practices destroy the mycelium layer, which means that the mushrooms will not grow back.