Paul Carter of AAP

Australia's black truffle harvest is in full swing with growers tipping a bumper crop of the revered fungus this winter.

Australia's truffle pioneers are in Tasmania, which produced the country's first Tuber melanosporum in 1999 after plantings began in 1991.

Peter Cooper from Perigord Truffles of Tasmania is predicting a best-ever national harvest for 2009 of about 1.5 tonnes.

Europe produces up to 60 tonnes of black truffles during its annual winter harvest.

The feather-light truffles have a three-week fresh shelf life and fresh is considered best, although they can be preserved.

Mr Cooper said prices for Australian truffles have so far withstood an impact on demand caused by the global financial crisis.

They'll sell this season for about $2.50 per gram, he said.

Tasmanian truffles, sniffed out from under oak and hazel trees by dogs, are picked in the morning and packed and shipped the same day.

The clock on freshness is ticking as soon as they are plucked from the earth.

Mr Cooper said they can be anywhere in Australia within 24 hours and anywhere in the world within 48 hours of harvesting.

Most of them will be sold overseas, through Asia and into Europe.

Closer however to the so-called "sweet, cold" truffle soils of Tasmania is The Agrarian Kitchen, at Lachlan, 40km west of Hobart.

It rung in the late start to this year's Tasmanian harvest recently with an six-course truffle experience, which attracted the maximum 24 diners, from Tasmania and interstate, at $275 per head.

Chef Luke Burgess, formerly of fashionable Sydney eatery Tetsuya's, took a break from the rave reviews about his work at Hobart's award-winning Islington Hotel to steer the truffles show The Agrarian Kitchen.

Mr Cooper started the day with a talk about truffles and foraging display from his best truffle dog.

Tasmanian black truffle went into dishes including truffled crayfish broth, chicken in mourning (shaved truffles under the skin and roasted in the wood-fired oven), fresh pasta with shaved truffles, truffled eggs and braised wild mushroom and truffle ragout.

Each course was matched by wines from France, Germany and Australia. The Agrarian Kitchen is hosting another of its truffle extravaganzas next month (August).

And as for the truffle taste ... well, I got a heady sense of cooked crayfish shell on my first ever sniff, which was compelling and more-ish.

But attempts to describe the illusory character of truffles differ, confounding poets and philosophers for ages.

French writer Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) perhaps said it best.

"The most learned men have been questioned as to the nature of this tuber, and after two thousand years of argument and discussion their answer is the same as it was on the first day: we do not know.

"The truffles themselves have been interrogated, and have answered simply: eat us and praise the Lord."

A black truffle varies in size from two centimetres in diameter to the size of a grapefruit and is covered in black warts; its appearance indicates nothing of its true value.

The truffles, which form annually, are found just below the soil surface to a depth of 20cm and are believed to develop their best characteristics in cold soil.

AAP