Ingredients · Fruit

Blackberry

Rubus spp. · Rosaceae (rose family)

Blackberry
Both the fruit and the leaf appear in this shop's blends, and they are not the same ingredient. The berry is deep, winey and a little tannic; the leaf, like raspberry and strawberry leaf, brings tannin and body with no berry flavour at all, which is why it turns up in herbal blends that need something to hold them up. Three products carry one or the other. Like a raspberry, a blackberry is not a berry in the botanical sense — it is an aggregate fruit of small drupelets.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partBerry
KindFruit
CaffeineCaffeine-free
TasteDeep, winey and a little tannic; the leaf is tannic and tea-like with no berry flavour

How to use it

In berry infusions, hot and iced. The dried fruit rehydrates seedy and chewy. The leaf steeps like a very mild black tea and is used for body in herbal blends.

With food

Apple and pear. Cream. Dark chocolate. Lemon. Almond. Sage and thyme, surprisingly. Red wine.

With spices

Vanilla. Cinnamon. Star anise. Lemon peel. Black pepper.

With tea

Black tea. Rooibos. Hibiscus and rosehip. Oolong.

Its story

Where it comes from

Native throughout Europe, northwestern Africa, temperate western and central Asia, and North and South America. Rubus armeniacus, the Himalayan or Armenian blackberry, is a noxious weed and invasive species in much of the Pacific Northwest, as well as in Australia, Chile and New Zealand. Our lot names no origin.

What happened

There is a folk rule about blackberries with a real reason behind it. In the UK and Ireland, blackberries should not be picked after Old Michaelmas Day, 11 October, because the devil — or a Púca — has made them unfit to eat. The botany agrees: autumn moisture lets the fruit become infected by various molds, which give it an unpleasant look. A superstition that is also a food-safety rule. Blackberry leaves have their own long use — a 1771 document describes brewing the leaves, stem and bark, and Greek, other European and Indigenous American traditions all used the plant.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.

Every ingredient in the shop

Explore

Other ways in

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