Product Review: Blueberries

Aside from my posts on watermelon (Product Review: Watermelons) and grape tomatoes (Product review: grape tomatoes), I tend not to review much of the product at Costco. Although Costco produce certainly looks amazing (I want those strawberries!), there is just too much of it given the short shelf-life of fruit and vegetables. However, blueberries are something that my family occasionally buys because we find that we can eat them in large enough quantities that we can finish most of the pack.

Aside from being a “superfood” and excellent for brain health and the immune system (yay antioxidants), they are delicious!

Although most people probably use blueberries mostly for cooking (who doesn’t love a fresh blueberry muffin or warm blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream??), when the berries are fresh and in season, I actually prefer to eat them in their natural form rather than dominating their pure, natural taste with additional sugar. Therefore, I like to eat them plain, with other fruits as part of a fruit salad, or with a relatively bland cereal or yogurt. If I ever went blueberry picking or for some reason ended up with a lot of extra blueberries, I would bake them or freeze them to make a blueberry topping for yogurt or waffles. However, I find that the frozen blueberries make an excellent topping when warmed up.

So far it seems like it has been a sad summer for the lovely blueberry. I remember my mother telling me a few months ago that she had read that blueberries were going to be very expensive this summer (perhaps due to the warmth earlier in the year?). Because I cannot bring myself to spend more than a maximum of $2.50/pint (and that is really extreme for me given that they are on sale a few times each summer for $1.50/pint), I figured that the rise in cost would mean that I was either skipping blueberries this summer or relying on the frozen ones (again, not bad when warmed up, but certainly not the same as fresh!). Although not on sale as much as during other summers, I have seen them $2/pint a few times and have tried them. Very disappointing. Although they were large and firm, they lacked taste…I thought I was done with blueberries for the year.

However, last week Costco had a lot of berries. Some other shoppers were tasting them and said that they were pretty good so it was worth a try. Although not incredibly cheap, Costco’s price comes out to about $1.50/pint, so it was worth the purchase, especially given how few chances I have this summer for good berries. I ate a large portion and I will say that they are better than the ones from the grocery store a few weeks ago, but certainly not up to par with what they have been in previous years.

I judge blueberries on the size, firmness and the taste. These were relatively large berries, although nothing compared to past years and they were much more variable in size than other times. They were firm which is good because mushy blueberries are not my thing. However, as mentioned, the taste was lacking. They were neither sour nor sweet. Occasionally there would be a berry with a nice burst of taste but that was rare. For the most part, they just had a bland, vaguely berry-ish taste but nothing that would really contribute added flavor to other foods.

So, I’d say if you want blueberries, get them at Costco over other places but if you can go without them, save your money and focus on fruits this summer that have more flavor.

Have you tried the blueberries at Costco this year? Did you also find them blander than in years past?

Have you found any good ones this season?

When they aren’t up to par, do you buy them anyway figuring they are better than nothing or do you stick to other fruits?