According to Chinese state media, Janet Yellen, aged 76, consumed four servings of jian shou qing, a type of wild mushroom, at a casual restaurant in Beijing shortly after her arrival on July 6. The media coverage was quite enthusiastic and even praised Yellen's chopstick skills. However, these particular mushrooms are notorious in their native province of Yunnan for their unpredictable psychedelic effects, as reported by CNN.

The Xinhua state news agency published a report about the mushrooms' potent powers only after Yellen had left, where one connoisseur shared, "You thought you were walking straight but you just fell sideways." Dr. Peter Mortimer, a professor at the Kunming Institute of Botany, informed CNN that he knew someone who mistakenly consumed these mushrooms and experienced hallucinations for three days.