True Albino Teacher — Spore Swab Cloud920®

True Albino Teacher — Origin & Genetics

Cloud920® Genetics: Heritage Series

True Albino Teacher — TAT for short — has one of the more interesting origin stories in modern cubensis history. It was first discovered around 2019 by mycologist Jik Fibs, who noticed something unusual while fruiting a tub of Golden Teachers: five fruits had come up completely white. Not leucistic, not pale — genuinely albino, with no melanin at all. Jik took samples from those five fruits and began the slow work of isolating the genetics until the albino trait expressed reliably every single run.

From that single discovery, an entire genetic family grew. The Facebook group "TAT Syndicate" formed around the work, and new isolates started appearing: Yeti, Ghost, Jack Frost, TAT Albino Riptide. What began as five white mushrooms in a tub became one of the most active breeding projects in the cubensis community. The OG TAT — the original isolate — is where it all started, and that is exactly what this swab carries.

Why a Spore Swab Is the Right Format for TAT

TAT is a true albino, not a leucistic strain. That distinction matters more than it sounds. Leucistic cubes like Avery's Albino still produce pigmented spores — you can see a dark deposit on foil, work with a spore print, and know more or less where your material is. True albinos produce transparent, colourless spores. On foil, on glass, on a slide — they are nearly invisible until you are looking directly through a lens. A standard spore print is almost useless: you cannot tell how much material you have, and you will likely lose most of it.

A pre-loaded spore swab sidesteps that problem entirely. Our lab team collects TAT spores directly from gill tissue and loads each swab under laminar flow, so you know there is viable material on the tip before you even open the packet. When a swab turns slightly blue on the cotton — a sign of bruising from the spores' psilocybin content — that is actually a useful visual confirmation that material is present. Streak directly onto agar and let the mycelium do the talking.

Morphology & Spore Characteristics

• Species: Psilocybe cubensis, albino mutation of Golden Teacher lineage
• Cap: 40–60 mm diameter. Convex to broadly flat, pure white to very slightly off-white. Cap edges often turn upward at maturity. No pigmentation under any lighting condition
• Stem: Medium to thick, bright white throughout. Bruises blue when handled — one of the more visible bruising reactions in any albino cubensis variety
• Spores: Transparent to very faintly purple-tinted. Subellipsoid, approximately 13 × 8 µm. 4-spored basidia. Will appear clear on agar and nearly invisible on foil
• Spore production: Moderate. Caps do produce spores but the colourless deposit is easily missed — spore swabs are the recommended collection method

Under the microscope at 400–1000× magnification, TAT spores are a genuinely different viewing experience compared to standard cubensis. Where a Golden Teacher shows dense, dark purple-brown ellipsoids, TAT spores are almost ghost-like — clear walls, faint outline, a single visible germ pore. For anyone building a comparative microscopy collection, putting a TAT slide next to an OG Golden Teacher slide is one of the clearest illustrations of what an albino mutation actually does at the spore level.

What Makes True Albino Teacher Different from Other Cubensis

Most cubensis albinos that circulate in the community are technically leucistic — they look pale or white but still carry some pigment, especially in the spores. TAT is the real thing: a complete loss of melanin that goes all the way down to the spore level. That makes it one of only a handful of confirmed true albino cubensis lines with a documented origin and a stable, reproducible phenotype.

It also sits at the root of an entire family tree. Yeti, Ghost, Jack Frost and several other well-known lines all trace back to the TAT lineage. Working with OG TAT spores means working with the original genetic source of that whole family — which, for anyone doing comparative agar work or studying phenotype expression across the TAT family, is the logical starting point.

What's in the Pack

• 2× sterile cotton spore swabs, individually sealed
• Each swab is pre-loaded with Psilocybe cubensis True Albino Teacher (TAT) spores collected directly from gill tissue under laminar flow
• Ready to use — no syringe, no liquid, no preparation needed

Spore swabs contain no psilocybin or psilocin and are sold exclusively for microscopy and taxonomic research purposes.

How to Use This Spore Swab

Work in a still-air box or under a laminar flow hood. Open the sterile wrapper and hold the swab by the handle only — keep your fingers away from the cotton tip. Gently streak the tip across a prepared agar plate in a zigzag pattern. Because TAT spores are transparent, you will not see a visible deposit on the swab the way you would with a pigmented strain. That is normal. Trust the process and streak confidently.

Seal your plate with Parafilm, label with strain name and date, and incubate at 21–23 °C. Expect germination within 5–14 days — look for fine white threads emerging from the agar surface rather than the dark germination halos you see with pigmented strains.

New to spore swabs? Read our full step-by-step spore swab guide →

Recommended Supplies

TAT is best approached with a full agar setup from the start:

• Petri dishes — for agar plating and sector isolation
• Agar Agar + Light Malt Extract (LME) — MEA plates give clear contrast for spotting transparent mycelium
• Parafilm — to seal plates immediately after inoculation
• A still-air box or laminar flow hood — essential for working with invisible spore loads

Cultivation Notes

• Difficulty: Moderate. Forgiving colonisation behaviour inherited from Golden Teacher, but transparent spores require confident, careful handling
• Substrate: BRF / PF Tek, rye grain, pasteurised dung, CVG mix
• Colonisation speed: Average — similar pace to Golden Teacher, consistent and predictable
• Fruiting temperature: 22–25 °C
• Yield: Moderate to good. Fruits tend to be dense and wide-capped when conditions are dialled in
• Note: Because mycelium and fruits are fully white, any contamination is immediately visible — TAT actually makes contamination easier to spot early than most pigmented strains

Start on agar first. With transparent spores you are working somewhat blind until germination, so run 2–3 plates from the same swab to give yourself multiple chances. Once you have clean, rhizomorphic growth established on a plate, TAT behaves reliably through to grain and beyond. The Golden Teacher heritage shows — it is not a difficult strain once the genetics are clean.

Storage

Store True Albino Teacher spore swabs in their original sealed packaging in the refrigerator at 2–8 °C, away from light and moisture. Open each swab only in a sterile environment, use immediately, and do not attempt to reseal or re-use a swab once the wrapper has been opened.