Although this page goes into print just before St Valentine’s Day, I am actually writing it on Sunday, February 1, which is not only proving to be one of the coldest days of the year, but the day my pledge to eat only British produce begins.

I will admit right from the start that going without my early morning cup of coffee and the many cups that follow throughout the day proved so difficult, I snapped about 11am. Unable to stand it any longer, I scraped out the dregs from an almost empty coffee jar to make a weak and very stale tasting beverage.

Although I have found some delightful drinks to fill the gap, none provides the caffeine-kick I have relied on to get me started throughout my adult life. Any reader suggestions for a coffee-alternative with caffeine, therefore, would be very welcome. I have ordered tea grown and produced in Cornwall, by the way, but it hasn’t arrived yet and there are herbal teas I could try. It is just a matter of thinking positive, I guess, and ridding myself of the caffeine craving.

One friend suggested trying to make my own coffee-flavoured hot drink by roasting dandelion roots from the garden – but the earth is far too frosty to dig them up at the moment.

I admit getting excited when I discovered that the Cotswold Herb Company listed dandelion coffee, but sadly it is sourced from Germany – so that was out, too. Besides, dandelion coffee is caffeine free. Presumably I am going to have to accept I must go without caffeine, along with all those other foods I have taken for granted to get me up in the morning, such as grapefruit and marmalade?

So what did I drink this morning? Actually my morning drink was extremely pleasant, but to be honest I found it a little too sweet first thing. As the day progressed, however, and my taste buds were beginning to adjust, I found it delightfully satisfying. It arrived on my doorstep courtesy of Rupert Ponsonby, the friend who dared me to try eating nothing but local, or British, food for a year.

There on my doorstep were three bottles of Pixley Berries blackcurrant cordials, which contain more than 60 per cent of pure fruit juice, obtained from fruit grown in the heart of Herefordshire. They are made from fruit juice, sugar and water – nothing else – and are completely free from artificial additives and strange-sounding preservatives. They are not made from concentrates either.

The fruits that go into this product are the result of a new breeding programme that takes into account global warming and climate change. Pixley are now growing two new blackcurrant varieties, Ben Hope and Ben Gairn, and continue their search for other varieties which offer bio-diversity within their fruit fields.

According to the Blackcurrant Foundation, which represents UK blackcurrant growers, the dark colour that blackcurrants deliver is rich in anthocanins and antioxidants, which, among other things, play an important role in slowing down the ageing process.

Rupert had delivered three different flavours for me to try: blackcurrant, blackcurrant and Scottish raspberries and blackcurrant and Cox’s apples. I am sticking to the blackcurrant at the moment and have left the other two bottles unopened.

Had I been working on a new way to serve champagne or sparkling white wine on St Valentine’s Day, I would suggest the blackcurrant cordial could be used in place of crème de cassis that is used in Kir Royal, a classic aperitif, which is eminently suitable for lovers. By pouring a measure of the blackcurrant cordial into the glass and topping it up with chilled sparkling wine, you have a perfect drink to serve prior to a romantic dinner.

I did use the cordial later in the day to flavour a special birthday cake I’d baked for my 92-year-old mother who enjoys fruit flavours. Having baked the cake using nothing but British ingredients, I cut it into three slices, and dribbled a little of the cordial over the cut surfaces. I then spread a generous amount of delicious Shaken Oak redcurrant jelly on top, which I had purchased from a farmers’ market, then topped each layer with whipped double cream produced from Jersey milk by the Upper Norton Jersey Cream Company at Church Hanborough.

I decorated the cake with Silver Spoon icing sugar, which is one of many sugars, created from British sugar beet.

When applying my mind to St Valentine’s Day, I decided to poach a couple of British pears, bought at my local Co-op, in the Pixley Berries blackcurrant cordial, which I diluted a little. They turned out beautifully, particularly when I reduced the cooking liquor once they were cooked and served it as a sauce. Naturally, the Upper Jersey cream finished off this pudding perfectly and the heart-shaped shortbread biscuits added the final touch.

Since beginning this project, I admit that unless I buy my goods from a farmers’ market, which gives me a chance to ask about them, shopping is getting difficult. I eventually decided to buy myself a small magnifying glass, which I can tuck into my handbag, as country of origin is often written in such small print, it is difficult to read.

I have learnt that if there is no country of origin listed, this means it is not British, and now accept that even if a pack of meat says British, it does not necessarily mean the animal was raised in the UK, only processed here. That is another good reason for buying from a farmers’ market or using your local butcher who knows exactly where the meat comes from, as the Eynsham family butcher Richard Golsby does.