Currant Madness

During the past couple of weeks, we've been picking currants planted throughout the development.   We have six bushes ourselves, which have yielded much more than I had expected. The red and white varieties seem to ripen all at once, which makes the picking process much easier.


The black ones on the other hand seen to ripen individually, so instead of plucking whole clusters, we picked these one by one.  I've never picked coffee before but I imagine it's a lot like this.  And unlike the white and red ones, which have a sweet/tart taste, the black one are much more interesting.  They are less juicy than the others and have a flavor that's musky and almost spicy. 


Just to give you a sense of scale, the Red Lake currants on the right are somewhat smaller than the unknown red variety on the left, but I think they have more flavor.


And while the black currants are more time consuming to pick, the red and white ones require more processing time.  But once you got into a groove, striping the berries seemed like therapeutic work. 


Just part of the harvest - we picked enough for several batches of wine, including one for each variety.  I think I'll also try making wine from a blend of the three.  And there will still be enough left over for jellies, syrups, cordials.