My Coffee Candle Develops a Larger Mushroom than My Lavender Candle Using the Same Wick — Should I Test a Different Wick for Coffee?

Why a coffee mushroom has three possible causes

A mushroom is a cap of carbon that builds on the tip of a cotton wick during a burn. It is commonly linked to a wick that is doing more than the candle needs, to heavy fragrance or dye loads, and to long burns; it can drop debris into the pool and is often seen with soot. These are tendencies, and CSI has no measured wick data for any oil. What the comparison with lavender tells you is that something about the coffee candle tips the same wick into making more carbon. Three things differ between those candles, and each points to its own purchase:

Why not just wick down and see? Because if C1 fixes the mushroom but tunnels, you have learned only that C1 is too small, and you will need the load and oil answers anyway, one shipping cycle later. And if C1 tunnels in an 8 cm-inside jar (50.27 cm² of pool is a lot for CSI's smallest tabbed rung), the load step may be the fix that keeps C2. Buying the levers together costs two small items. Testing them in sequence costs weeks.

The load step needs no purchase because both loads sit inside both ceilings: the Roasted Coffee page states "candles (6-10%)" and CSI 464 states "Fragrance Load Up to 10%"; 6% of total weight is 6.38% of the wax weight and 8% is 8.70%. Whether a lower load costs you throw, and how to score it blind, is the method in the 8 cm coffee load step-down post; this page owns only what to buy for it and what the result is worth.

Why Coffee Vanilla Tobacco and not another coffee? Of CSI's in-stock coffee listings, Roasted Coffee and Coffee Vanilla Tobacco are the two whose pages state a candle load in the text we captured; Moca Coffee and Coffee Blast state none, so testing either would add a second unknown. Choosing a coffee is not the point of this arm: it asks whether the mushroom follows coffee or follows Roasted Coffee.

The three-lever order, arm by arm

The worked example is the cluster's jar: your 200 g jar about 8.0 cm inside, CSI 464, and C2 as the wick that lavender passes on. Candles are 200 g: 16 g oil + 184 g wax at 8%, 12 g oil + 188 g wax at 6%. The fill weight stays the same at both loads, so only the split changes.

If you already hold C2, Roasted Coffee and wax, the order is ₹567.00. From nothing except C2 and lavender it is ₹2,461.80; add a C2 10-pack and it is ₹2,556.20. The materials the thirteen candles consume come to ₹2,364.13, which excludes your jars, labour, freight, packaging and GST.

Pouring and scoring the thirteen candles

For the mushroom itself, a labelled worked-example scale keeps the notes comparable: 0 none, 1 a bead no wider than the wick, 2 a cap wider than the wick, 3 a cap that smokes or drops debris. It is our scale, not a standard; what matters is using the same one for all thirteen candles and the lavender yardstick. Burn 3 is the first useful read; the full life decides.

The reading order, and why money decides it

Read the control first. If the three control candles do not mushroom more than the lavender yardstick, the original result came from something outside this test (a long session, an untrimmed wick, a draught) and none of the levers is needed. If they do, read the arms in order of how much each changes the candle you sell, which is also the order of what it does to your cost per candle:

The money runs in the same direction as the reading order, which is why the order is not arbitrary. A C1 win is pure gain: same scent, same strength, a cheaper wick. The down-rung arm's test costs (the C1 pack plus three candles' materials) are repaid by its saving after about 170 production candles. A 6% win saves more per candle on paper, but you have sold the customer a quarter less fragrance oil; only a blind throw comparison can tell you whether they will notice. An oil-swap win is a new product: it may be the right answer, but it costs more on every candle and needs its own approval.

Two arms can both pass. If C1 and 6% both clear the mushroom, take C1 at 8% if its pool reaches the glass and it passes full life; the throw stays where your customers know it. If C1 tunnels in your jar but 6% on C2 clears, the 6% arm is the answer. Do not combine C1 and 6% in production without testing that combination: it is a fifth candle you have not poured.

From the winning arm to the coffee production order

Approval first: all three candles of the winning arm burned to about 1 cm left, with no soot, heat or flame failure in the final third, where heat commonly builds. Then size the order with the series formula, wicks = candles × wicks per candle × (1 + allowance), 5% allowance as our worked-example figure, and buy the oil by weight.

A C1 win adds a second wick to a jar that lavender keeps on C2: two bins, two reorder points, and the rule that coffee batches never borrow from the C2 bin. Because C1 and C2 are flat per wick, there is no pack size that makes the second SKU cheaper; buy a month plus safety stock and reorder by the formula (per-size reorder points). Whether an odd-one-out wick is worth stocking or worth reformulating away is the stock-or-reformulate post.

Changing the load in production is a formula change, not just a pour: every coffee batch sheet says 6%, and every later supplier or jar change re-tests at 6%. If you sell a coffee range across several jars, an approved load change in one jar does not carry to the others. The vanilla version of this question, where an unscented control is the first comparison and the down-rung is bought only if the load step fails, is the vanilla carbon post.

What to buy for the coffee test, and what to skip

Five items, chosen on page statements, price and stock on 1 October 2026. CSI publishes no wick-performance data for any oil, so nothing here is ranked on burn results. Oil candle counts use 16 g per 200 g candle and 12 g per 150 g candle.

Skip for this test: Cotton Braided: a bigger wick is the wrong direction for a mushroom. Moca Coffee and Coffee Blast: no candle load stated in the text we captured, and only some sizes are in stock. Performance Wooden Wicks: a different construction and a different test. A 500 g or 1 kg of anything before the winner passes full life.

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