Do You Know Where Your Elderberries Come From? Should You? Yes! American vs European Elderberries: What’s the Difference (and Why It Matters)
- Benjamin Machlitt
- Jan 14
- 7 min read
If you’ve been on the internet for more than five minutes, you’ve probably seen elderberry syrup, elderberry gummies, elderberry capsules… elderberry everything.
But just because a label says “elderberry” doesn’t mean you’re getting a high-quality elderberry product.
In fact, most people don’t realize there’s a massive difference between:
fresh American elderberries (what we use), and
dehydrated European elderberries (what most of the market uses).
So this post is going to do two things:
Give you a quick “elderberry 101” so you understand what you’re looking at.
Explain, in plain English, why American elderberries are (in my opinion) the better choice, and how to spot watered-down products fast.
I’m not here to tear down every elderberry business on earth. There are plenty of good folks out there. My goal is simple:
I want you to know what “good” looks like. If you end up buying from us at Popple Tree Creek Farm, awesome. If you buy from someone else but you’re educated? That’s still a win.
Elderberry 101: What elderberries are (and why the color matters)
An elderberry is a real fruit. Not a lab-made ingredient. Not a “pharmacological supplement.” It grows on a bush (commercial growers prune hard to encourage new growth each year), and the berries form in big umbrella-shaped clusters.
When they’re ripe, they’re a deep purple. Almost black.
That color is important, because it’s a clue. In plants, deeper pigment often correlates with higher levels of naturally occurring compounds like:
Anthocyanins
Polyphenols
Those are two of the big powerhouses people talk about when they talk about “antioxidants.”
And quick side note: if you’re ever harvesting elderberries yourself and you see green or light purple berries, skip them.
You want the dark ones. That’s where the good stuff is.
Elderberries aren’t magic (but they can be a powerful tool)
Let me get this out of the way, because I see people online say some wild things:
Elderberries are not magic. They’re not snake oil either. But they’re also not a “take this and you’ll never get sick again” pill.
Elderberries are best thought of as an important tool in your health and wellness toolbox.
There’s research around elderberries in areas like:
seasonal wellness (cold/flu duration and symptom reduction for some people)
antioxidants and inflammation
heart health / blood pressure / blood sugar regulation
skin health
and there’s even some early research happening around brain health
But if elderberry is the only thing you do for your health (if you’re not sleeping, not eating well, not taking care of yourself) then yeah… you might be disappointed. Elderberries can’t fight that battle alone.
I’ll also tell you from real life: I run an elderberry business and I still get sick sometimes. What I notice is when I take it consistently and I’m smart about timing (travel, crowded events, cold and flu season), it can help reduce how hard something hits me, or sometimes help me avoid it.
Not magic. Just support.
“Immune booster” vs “immune modulator” (and the cytokine myth)
A lot of people call elderberry an “immune booster.” That’s the easy phrase, and honestly, you’ll see it everywhere.
But I think a better way to explain it is this:
Elderberry helps your body make better decisions. It supports your immune system’s normal processes instead of just “boosting” everything up.
And while we’re here, let’s clear up a myth that floated around for a while:
Myth: Elderberries cause a “cytokine storm”
No.
Cytokines are a broad group of messenger signals in your body. Some increase inflammation. Some reduce inflammation. Some raise fever. Some lower fever. They’re part of how your immune system communicates.
The myth was that elderberry would “boost” your immune system so much that it would overload your cytokines and make you worse.
From what I’ve seen in the research, there isn’t evidence for that, and there’s actually research pointing the other direction: that elderberry can help modulate cytokine responses, basically helping your body keep things in control.
Again: support and regulation, not overload.
The big difference: Fresh American juice vs dehydrated European berries
Now we get into the part most people don’t realize.
99% of elderberry products in the U.S. are made from European elderberries
Most of them are made from dehydrated European elderberries, often in powder form or reconstituted into something “syrup-like.”
And the underlying theme is this:
Overprocessed and diluted.
When you see a lot of syrups out there that look watery, brown, and thin… there’s usually a reason.
What we do at Popple Tree Creek Farm
Our elderberry syrup is made from American elderberries and fresh-pressed juice.
Here’s what “fresh” means for elderberries, because elderberries are extremely perishable:
Harvested (in season)
De-stemmed
Washed / rinsed / sanitized
Frozen immediately
Then juiced and made into syrup
Bottled
We freeze them because we have to. Elderberries will spoil fast. Like 24–48 hours fast if they’re not handled correctly.
And here’s another important detail:
We don’t use berries older than one year. Even though frozen berries can technically last longer if stored cold enough, we keep ours “young.” Fresh matters.
Why processing matters: heat, storage, shipping, and oxidation
European elderberries are usually dehydrated before they ever get here.
Dehydration often involves temperatures in the range of 135–155°F. That’s heat stress. Then there’s storage time. Then there’s long-distance shipping.
Most of the European berries are shipped on Container Ships around 7,000 miles to get to the U.S.
Any fruit that’s:
dried,
stored for long periods,
and shipped across the world
…has more opportunity for oxidation over time.
Compare that to our berries:
frozen quickly
held cold (we store around ~20 below)
used within a year
Less heat. Less storage mystery. Less time exposed.
Here’s a “secret” about dehydrated elderberries most people don’t know
This is one of the biggest things people don’t realize about dehydrated berries.
Elderberries get frozen after harvest (pretty much everyone does that because they perish so fast).
But you can’t just toss frozen elderberries into a dehydrator.
Once an elderberry is frozen and thawed, a lot of juice comes out. So what happens is:
berries are thawed
juice drains out
then what’s left gets dehydrated
That means the dehydrated berry you’re buying can be 15–20% or more down in juice/weight compared to whole fruit.
That drained juice gets used for other things sometimes, sure, but if you’re buying dehydrated berries for syrup, you’re starting with a berry that already lost part of what makes it valuable.
Quality issues: why I personally stopped using European elderberries
We didn’t always use American elderberries.
We started with European. It’s cheaper. It’s everywhere. It’s what most people do.
But we got out of that supply chain because the quality was inconsistent, declining and honestly, frustrating.
We saw:
mold in bags
tacky berries vs overly dry berries (inconsistency)
punctured packaging (not airtight)
humidity exposure → more mold risk
confusing date stamps that didn’t inspire confidence
You just don’t have the same traceability when something is coming through a long chain of brokers and shippers.
Traceability and transparency: fewer middlemen, more accountability
When you buy from an American elderberry producer (like us), you get transparency by default.
I want to show you my field. I want to show you harvest day. I want you to see bottling day. We do tours. We do videos. We show the process.
Because we’re proud of it.
And the supply chain is short:
we grow it (and partner with other growers)
we process it
we bottle it
we sell it
With imported berries, there are usually multiple handoffs: picker/farmer → processor → broker → shipper → importer → marketer → seller
That’s not automatically “bad,” but it does create more unknowns.
Organic standards vary (and labels can get complicated)
This is one people don’t talk about enough.
Some European elderberries are sold as “certified organic,” but a lot are wild harvested.
Wild harvesting can happen along roadsides and near farm fields, areas that may be exposed to pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer drift.
Standards vary across countries, and “organic” doesn’t always mean the exact same thing everywhere.
I’m not saying everything from Europe is contaminated. I’m saying you don’t always know, and it’s worth being thoughtful.
How to spot a watered-down elderberry syrup in 30 seconds
Here’s the fun part.
1) Look at the color
A truly rich elderberry syrup is often a deep purple/pink should not look thin or diluted.
A lot of the syrups made from dehydrated/reconstituted European berries tend to look:
brown
prune-colored
thinner
semi-transparent
2) Look at the texture
A thicker syrup often sticks to the bottle.
A lot of watered-down products slosh around like… water.
3) Read the label (this matters most)
Don’t just look at bottle size.
Look at:
how much elderberry is in a serving
and do the math on value per gram
Our syrup is 9,500 mg (9.5g) per serving, and we formulate around what’s consistent with research.
A lot of products out there are a fraction of that, and again, that doesn’t mean they’re “bad,” but it does mean you may not be getting the potency you think you are.
Whole fruit vs powder: the quality hierarchy
If you’re trying to choose the best form of elderberry, here’s how I’d rank it:
Fresh pressed (from fresh/frozen whole fruit)
Freeze-dried (as long as it’s stored responsibly and not sitting for years)
Powders/concentrates (more unknowns: heat, storage, air exposure, age)
Fresh frozen juice is hard to beat.
Final takeaway: cheaper isn’t always better
Most elderberry products are built around the cheapest inputs possible, because it’s a crowded market and people compete on price.
That’s not what we’re doing.
We’re playing the long game:
educating people
setting a higher standard
and making elderberry products the way we believe they should be made: fresh, potent, transparent, and traceable.
If you want to try what we make, awesome! We ship and we’re happy to help.
And if you buy from someone else, just make sure you’re buying something that’s actually worthy of your health and wellness dollars.
Because when it comes to elderberries… what’s inside the bottle matters way more than the word on the label.
If you want to dive more into how to choose elderberry products, check out this article.
At Popple Tree Creek Farms, we believe you deserve the highest-quality elderberry syrup and products. That’s why we use 100% fresh-frozen American elderberries. Never imported, never from concentrate, and never dried. Every jar of our elderberry syrup is crafted in small batches to preserve maximum potency and flavor.
When you choose our syrup, teas, or snacks, you’re not just supporting your immune system, you’re supporting American farmers, sustainable agriculture, and a family-owned business dedicated to authenticity and quality.
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