Haskaps: the first berry of the New Zealand season

If you want to pick something before everyone else, this is the crop. Haskaps ripen in late spring, ahead of strawberries in the north and weeks ahead of every summer berry, which makes them the first pickable fruit of the New Zealand year.

They are grown in Canterbury, where the cold winters suit them: haskaps come from the far north of the northern hemisphere and they need a proper chill to crop.

What they are

Also called honeyberries or blue honeysuckle. They look like a long, slightly squashed blueberry, dark blue with a heavy bloom, and they grow on an open bush rather than a cane.

The flavour is not a blueberry. It sits somewhere between a raspberry, a blackcurrant and a blueberry, with more acid than any of them, which is why they cook exceptionally well and why some people find them sharp raw. If you like blackcurrants you will like haskaps immediately.

The ripeness test needs a knife

This is the one thing to know before you go, and it catches almost every first-time picker.

The skin turns deep blue well before the fruit is ripe. A haskap can look completely finished and still be green and sour inside. The only reliable test is to cut one open: ripe haskaps are red-purple all the way through. Green inside means wait, however dark the outside.

Growers will show you this at the gate. Ask, and taste one from each block, because varieties ripen a week or two apart.

Picking them

They pick fast, which is a pleasant surprise after strawberries. A ripe haskap detaches with barely a tug, and many growers put a sheet under the bush and let you shake the ripe ones down. Ask before you shake anything.

They are softer than they look and they mark easily, so use a shallow container.

What to do with them

Freeze them. Haskaps freeze better than any other berry here and lose almost nothing, so a big pick is not a problem.

Cook them. They are high in pectin, unlike most of the berries in this country, so haskap jam sets properly with no help at all. They make a very good crumble, a better sauce for duck or lamb than most people expect, and they are excellent in muffins where the acid cuts the sugar.

Raw, they go well through yoghurt or a smoothie, and children who reject them raw usually eat them cooked.

Before you go

There are very few haskap growers in the country, the season is short, and it does not overlap with anything else. Check the listing and phone ahead: with one crop and a two-to-three-week window, an unannounced drive is a real risk.

Updated 10 September 2026