Where to find lush caves in Minecraft's latest update?

In the Minecraft Caves & Cliffs update, tons of new items, mobs and biomes were announced and released. Lush Caves is an underground biome that was announced as part of the Caves & Cliffs update, although the natural generation of these caves will not be appearing in Minecraft until the upcoming 1.18 update.

Regardless, the Java Edition 1.18 Experimental Snapshot 1 was just released, meaning Java Edition players have access to tons of features coming out in the update scheduled for later this year. Lush Caves are an exciting feature that tons of players have been looking forward to, and now that it can be accessed naturally through the snapshot, players can finally scout them out.

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Lush Caves in Minecraft: Where are they located?

What are Lush Caves?

Glow Berries in a Lush Cave (Image via PCGamesN)

Lush Caves are an addition to the Minecraft Caves & Cliffs update, and they will be able to spawn naturally in the upcoming 1.18 or Caves & Cliffs Part II update later this year. Lush Caves are a new underground biome that will ultimately add lots of variety and color to the world beneath Minecraft's surface.

Lush Caves house lots of new items such as moss carpets, azalea bushes, cave vines, glow berries, spore blossoms, dripleaves and much more. A mob that was added in the first part of Caves & Cliffs, the axolotl, will be moved to the Lush Caves biome once it officially comes out.

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How can you find Lush Caves?

A Lush Cave biome (Image via Minecraft)

On 13 July, the Java Edition 1.18 Experimental Snapshot 1 was released, introducing new terrain generation and enabling features from the preview data pack. As long as players using Java Edition have this snapshot downloaded and are using it, Lush Caves will generate naturally for them.

However, for players using Bedrock Edition, Lush Caves will generate rarely and randomly in caves, so long as the Experimental Gameplay feature is turned on.

When the Minecraft 1.18 update comes along, players will be able to find Lush Caves in one very specific way- finding Azalea trees. Azalea trees will generate on top of a Lush Cave. The spawning of Azalea trees is most common in the Overworld, although there will be times when the trees can be found in caves. For players in Bedrock Edition, the grass above the Lush Cave will take on a lighter green color.

When the players come across the signs of a Lush Caves biome, all they need to do is dig (or mine, if the player is underground) straight down from where the Azaela tree or discolored grass is. After digging straight down, the player should drop into or near a Lush Cave.