Ingredients · Fruit

Cranberry

Vaccinium macrocarpon · Ericaceae (heath family)

Cranberry
Sharply tart — raw cranberries have an acidic taste that usually overwhelms their sweetness, which is why about 95 per cent of the crop is processed rather than sold fresh, and why the dried ones in a tea blend are almost always sweetened. Three products carry them. In a blend they do what hibiscus does but with fruit behind the acid, and they are one of the few genuinely North American ingredients on the shelf.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partBerry
KindFruit
CaffeineCaffeine-free
Where it is fromCanada, United States
TasteSharply tart with a deep fruit behind it; almost always sweetened in the dried form

How to use it

In fruit and berry infusions, hot and iced. With apple, which softens them. Rehydrated into compotes and sauces. Their acidity means a blend built on them rarely needs hibiscus as well.

With food

Apple and orange. Turkey and pork. Brie and goat cheese. Pecan and walnut. Cinnamon. Maple. Port.

With spices

Cinnamon, clove and orange peel — the mulling chord. Ginger. Star anise. Vanilla.

With tea

Rooibos. Black tea. Hibiscus and rosehip. White tea.

Its story

Where it comes from

Native to northern North America across Canada and the eastern United States, south to North Carolina at high altitudes. In 2024 Wisconsin grew 59 per cent of US production and Quebec 60 per cent of Canadian production, with Massachusetts also a major producer. Our lot names no origin.

What happened

Cranberries float, and the whole modern harvest depends on it. Beds are flooded with fifteen to twenty centimetres of water, a harvester is driven through to knock the fruit off the vines, and the berries rise to the surface to be corralled — which is where the photographs of people standing waist-deep in a red lake come from. The older use was Indigenous: the Narragansett called them sasemineash and used them in pemmican, as food and as dye, and early European colonists took up the practice.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.

Every ingredient in the shop

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Other ways in

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