The elderflower provides a unique experience, with its unforgettable floral aroma and curious depth of aroma, this tiny flower makes an impact.
With a rich history of use as a medicinal tonic and delicious beverage, the elder flowers popularity has stood the test of time.
Both elderflowers and elderberries (if unpicked the flowers of the elder produce the berries) have a long history and tradition of use in beverage, food, perfumery, cosmetics, and wellness. The benefits were first detailed over 2500 years ago by Hippocrates, the father of medicine.
In the book ‘Anatomy of the Elder’ (original edition 1677), the author Dr Martin Blochwich describes the method to produce a medicinal syrup of elderflowers, macerating a pound of fresh flowers in 6 pounds fresh warmed mountain water, straining the liquid and adding sugar at 4 ounces for every 5 ounces of strained liquid, boiling into a syrup for use for an array of maladies.
Modern science has confirmed the flowers contain abundant phenolic compounds, when concentrated, are added to pharmaceutical formulations for symptoms including fevers, coughs and colds.
In beverage, elderflower is enjoying the status as a trendy ingredient for innovation and new product development, finding its way into a range of beverages including gin, beer, cider, sparkling wine, liqueurs, cocktails, juice, dairy drinks, plant based dairy, soft drinks, kombucha and water.
Not only is elderflower delicious in its own right, its also an effective and simple way to give tired traditional flavours a boost such as apple, pear, citrus and berries.
The elder tree throws out masses of flowers at the end of spring with growers removing at least a third of these flowers from their cultivated trees to reduce the weight stress from the berries on the branches. The delicate elderflowers are hand-picked, de-stemmed and either processed, dried or snap frozen.
The beverage industry uses elderflowers as tea-cut pieces or as infused liquids. Here are examples below of two types of industrial elderflower liquid products we supply:
Elderflower single strength base product - Brix 0.0 to 3.5, pH value 2.5 to 3.5 Application: for use by food industry without added sugar Ingredients: water, elderflower extract, acidifier citric acid, antioxidant: ascorbic acid Appearance: homogenous, clear liquid Product colour: yellow-brown Taste typical, without off-taste
Elderflower base product - Brix 19.0 to 21.0, pH value 2.5 to 3.5 Application: for use by food industry with added sugar and flavour Ingredients: water, sugar, elderflower extract, acidifier: citric acid E330, flavouring Appearance: homogenous, clear liquid Product: colour yellow-brown Taste: sweet, without off-taste
The elderflower liquids are stabilised and standardised with varying amounts of sugar and flavour. We suggest that you begin by ordering samples of each of the elderflower ingredients, namely with or without sugar to establish development benchmarks.
Email Karlie to organise your samples today, k.wilson@greenbluehealth.com