"In Finland, there is a common belief that hot blackcurrant juice is an effective remedy against a cold," said Jukka Siukosaari, the international affairs officer for the Finnish Medical Association. At least, "that's what my grandmother used to recommend," he pointed out. "I suppose the vitamins [in the juice] are believed to be behind the effect."
Purple black in color and an excellent source of vitamin C, blackcurrants were used in the United Kingdom as a food source of vitamin C during World War II, when oranges were hard to come by. In fact, blackcurrants have three to four times the vitamin C content as an orange and are valued for their medicinal benefits. Long a trusted remedy for sore throat, the small berries were called quinsy for a form of tonsillitis they're thought to treat.
Blackcurrants come from trees found mostly in Northern and Central Europe and Asia, which is one reason they remain popular in Europe today. The trees were once widely found in the United States, but when the shrub was found to host and spread a disease that threatened the timber industry, they were banned in the early 1900s. By the mid-1960s the federal ban was lifted in favor of allowing states to make their own growing decisions.
Both the fruit and its juice have a sweet and tart taste. The juice can be homemade or sold commercially as a concentrate in the supermarket, explained Siukosaari. If using the concentrate, you add hot water to it and begin to drink the warm juice three to four times a day when your cold symptoms start to act up.
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