Author Topic: Bitter black currants  (Read 550 times)

Draak

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Bitter black currants
« on: August 26, 2023, 04:20:03 AM »
I went to the Asian store recently and got a small tub of dried black currants. They were excellent! It was sweet, and similar to eating raisins. I tried some fresh black currants from a local nursery, and they were awful! It was like bitter black pepper. There was nothing sweet about the fresh currant experience. I tried my own fresh black currants, and they tasted the same. I tried waiting for them to get extra ripe (starting to slightly shrivel) and they still tasted like bitter black pepper.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Galatians522

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Re: Bitter black currants
« Reply #1 on: August 26, 2023, 07:54:34 PM »
I went to the Asian store recently and got a small tub of dried black currants. They were excellent! It was sweet, and similar to eating raisins. I tried some fresh black currants from a local nursery, and they were awful! It was like bitter black pepper. There was nothing sweet about the fresh currant experience. I tried my own fresh black currants, and they tasted the same. I tried waiting for them to get extra ripe (starting to slightly shrivel) and they still tasted like bitter black pepper.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I think your issue comes frome a case of mistaken identity. The grape variety Zante Currant (sold fresh as Champaign Grape in the US) is one of the more popular rasin varieties. However US consumers prefered the larger rasins made from Sultana (Thompson Seedless) and its spinoffs. Many people still refer to raisins made from Zante Currant simply as "currants." It is possible that someone started calling theses raisins "black currants" because of the dark color. So, your "black currants" would actually have been a true raisin. Hope that helps.

Draak

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Re: Bitter black currants
« Reply #2 on: August 26, 2023, 09:19:41 PM »
I went to the Asian store recently and got a small tub of dried black currants. They were excellent! It was sweet, and similar to eating raisins. I tried some fresh black currants from a local nursery, and they were awful! It was like bitter black pepper. There was nothing sweet about the fresh currant experience. I tried my own fresh black currants, and they tasted the same. I tried waiting for them to get extra ripe (starting to slightly shrivel) and they still tasted like bitter black pepper.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I think your issue comes frome a case of mistaken identity. The grape variety Zante Currant (sold fresh as Champaign Grape in the US) is one of the more popular rasin varieties. However US consumers prefered the larger rasins made from Sultana (Thompson Seedless) and its spinoffs. Many people still refer to raisins made from Zante Currant simply as "currants." It is possible that someone started calling theses raisins "black currants" because of the dark color. So, your "black currants" would actually have been a true raisin. Hope that helps.

This absolutely does help! Thank you! I suppose what I ate is questionable as to whether it was a grape or a currant.

However, weird explorer found that black currants pretty much tasted like grapes, blueberries, and generally berries. He said they were mostly sweet, and maybe very slightly tart. He uses a LOT of descriptors in all of his videos, but none of those descriptors in this video were “bitter” or “peppery”. What he ate definitely looked more like black currant and not grapes.

Did weird explorer find something other than black currants? There was definitely NOTHING sweet about my two experiences with black currant.

https://youtu.be/T6DFIkY3gNg?si=PIXyCKksbAIosDGQ

brian

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Re: Bitter black currants
« Reply #3 on: September 10, 2023, 08:46:14 PM »
I have bought fresh blackcurrants at markets and they taste exactly like Ribena - the blackcurrant flavored drink popular in UK.  They did not taste anything like grape to me.  They are slightly... odd tasting I would not say bitter though.  Resinous, maybe? 

I really like them, the red ones are different but just as good also.  And there are white ones that taste similar to blueberries, nice but not as interesting as black & red