 | The tayberries are ready!!! They're Farmer Tod's favourite fruit and this year it's a bumper crop. Thousands of deliciously large purple fruits hanging from the bushes, just waiting to be picked! But what is a tayberry? That's a very good question! In this post I'll explain what they are and why they're such a great fruit to pick... |
"A what-berry?"
A Tayberry is a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry. This particular breed was created in the 1970s in Dundee, Scotland and named after the nearby River Tay. A tayberry looks just like you'd imagine this hybrid to look, mixing the pink of the raspberry and the black of the blackberry to make a deep purple fruit. It combines the quantity of fruit too, producing a large, long berry.
Other raspberry x blackberry hybrids exist, including the Loganberry and Sunberry, but we think the tayberry is the best of the lot. We've been growing them for over 30 years and they've got a cult following from a lot of our regulars!
What do they taste like?
Tayberries taste similar to a raspberry, but are sweeter. They don't have the tartness of their pink cousins and so can be enjoyed freshly picked without sugar or cream. For this reason, they're great for kids to snack on as they don't result in as many tummy-aches as wolfing down some more sharper fruits can.
A Tayberry is a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry. This particular breed was created in the 1970s in Dundee, Scotland and named after the nearby River Tay. A tayberry looks just like you'd imagine this hybrid to look, mixing the pink of the raspberry and the black of the blackberry to make a deep purple fruit. It combines the quantity of fruit too, producing a large, long berry.
Other raspberry x blackberry hybrids exist, including the Loganberry and Sunberry, but we think the tayberry is the best of the lot. We've been growing them for over 30 years and they've got a cult following from a lot of our regulars!
What do they taste like?
Tayberries taste similar to a raspberry, but are sweeter. They don't have the tartness of their pink cousins and so can be enjoyed freshly picked without sugar or cream. For this reason, they're great for kids to snack on as they don't result in as many tummy-aches as wolfing down some more sharper fruits can.
 Deep purple: ready to pick! |  A little bit pink: not ready yet! |
When looking for the perfect tayberries to pick, make sure they're deep, dark purple, ideally soft and oozing juice - these are the very sweetest berries you'll find. If you pick the firmer, smaller, pinker berries (similar to raspberries) you'll find them quite tart and not half as delicious! As with all our fruit, we'd advise giving them a rinse after you've paid for them before tucking in.
| What can I do with them? Due to their natural sweetness, most people enjoy eating their tayberries raw and unadulterated, either on their own or as part of a fruit salad. We sell hundreds of punnets ready-picked from the farm shop, and often hear they're so moreish they don't even last the journey home! |  Our ready-picked tayberries are hugely popular. Perfect for those unable to pick their own. |
| Another popular option is to make them into jam. Barbara and her team in the cafe make a straight tayberry jam, with a deep full-bodied flavour and the following ingredients: tayberries, sugar... that's it! She also makes a tayberry & raspberry jam which is that little bit sharper and won 2 stars at the Great Taste Awards. You can pick up these jams in the farm shop, or why not pick the fresh ingredients here at the farm and boil up your own batch of jam at home! |  Tayberry jam - it's divine! |
I hope this post has tickled your taste-buds for tayberries! In a season when the strawberries have been and gone so soon, it's consoled us to find the tayberries have produced such a bountiful crop. Why not come and give them a try and see what all the fuss is about?
James Bulmer, 29th June 2018
James Bulmer, 29th June 2018