Cups & Mugs

Celebrate Maine’s state fruit: the blueberry! This hand painted Blueberry Mini Wine Glass is designed and created by Lisa-Marie herself. Perfect for a mini cocktail, or use as an indoor or outdoor decorative votive holder.

Maine’s wild blueberries started out 10,000 years ago as a scrappy survivor in the nutrient-deficient sandy plain left behind by receding glaciers. Today, the wild blueberry is a signature Maine product. Growing naturally in fields and barrens that stretch along the Downeast coast, the blueberry is adapted to Maine’s naturally acidic, low-fertility soils and challenging winters, and require minimal management.

The barrens, in vibrant magentas and purples, are a stunning sight. The tasty product, smaller than cultivated blueberries found elsewhere around the world, is packed with flavor. Long known as a staple for jams and pancakes, blueberries in recent years have gained cachet for a growing suite of value-added products, from wine to chutney to skin cream.

The sweet success of Maine’s wild blueberry goes back to early Native American history. Native Americans used the tiny berries, both fresh and dried, for their flavor, nutrition, and healing qualities. They also were useful as meat preservatives, thanks to their naturally occurring antimicrobial compounds that inhibit bacterial growth.

In the early 1800s, European colonizers gathered berries as a public privilege on the blueberry barrens of Washington County. Blueberries were canned and shipped to the Union troops during the Civil War in the 1860s. A century later, technology for “individually quick frozen” berries was developed, followed by computer color-sorting technology. In the late 1990s, the industry began promoting blueberries as “Nature’s Antioxidant SuperFruit.”