One of the classic writers talked about mycophobes and mycophiles- people who find mushrooms disgusting and people who find them fascinating.
I definitely know of a typical mushroom flavour which is easy to experience by chewing a small piece of raw mushroom- the white field mushrooms you see in every supermarket- forgot the name. You can detect that flavour in many other mushrooms.
I really don't like that taste even though I love seeing mushrooms in the wild and cooking the more gourmet stuff in small amounts with other foods.
Eating a heroic dose of Psilocybe semilanceata was never a pleasant affair and I had to powder them and mix them with honey and swallow fast!
Cubensis and cyanascens taste more nutty and are easier, for sure! Sclerotia can actually taste nice.
I have heard people talking about smoking the Fly Agaric skins before.... I tried it and all I got was a really aweful flavour.... Fungus doesn't really burn even when dry so I guess there was some vaporisation of something there but I got nothing.
I once met a hippy who was quite sure that the white spots on the Fly Agaric skin contain DMT
There is a free PDF e-book i found online about Amanita that came out some 10 years ago that i can dig out if people are interested> The author believes that Amanita Muscaria is indeed the Soma of Hindu mythology and makes some interesting claims about it. That is where I read about the water extract.
He reckons it is easy to propagate this mushroom without lab technology and that ancient people were onto it.
The amount of BS about this mushroom seems to be off the scale - OR - it is really magic so does totally different things to different people in defiance of science!!