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I once spent a month blind taste-testing apples with my wife to compare the apples in our supermarket. We learned 4 things: 1) Most of the Honeycrisp varietal

I once spent a month blind taste-testing apples with my wife to compare the apples in our supermarket. We learned 4 things: 1) Most of the Honeycrisp varietals that make it to market are good (Wild Twist and Cosmic Crisp being our favorites), but… 2) The time of year makes a HUGE difference. It seems obvious when I say it, but different varietals from different farms are best in different weeks. Honeycrisp has an advantage here because it has so many growers that someone is keeping a batch in good condition for practically every week of the year. 3) You have to go by the apples in your local market. Lists like these are hard to use because there are many more apples on it than you have available to choose from - most grocery stores only stock 3-10 varieties depending on time of year 4) Your use case is critical. Obviously baking a pie requires a different apples from eating, but even if you are just eating the apples raw there are differences. Some apples beat others in texture when cut up, but have the wrong density to eat by biting down on the apple After all our testing, we mostly went back to Honeycrisp because it’s so reliable.

trip-zip 4y ago
Point #4 is totally on point! I slice lots of apples to share with my kid and there is such an unexpected difference depending on the variety we buy. Some apples really benefit from being cut into wedges!
- ortusdux 4y ago
  I agree as well, rating apples without considering the use case is a critical oversight! Kenji set the apple rating bar pretty high: https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-what-are-the-best-apples-for-apple-pies-how-to-make-pie https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-what-are-the-best-a...
m463 4y ago
I remember going to one of the local markets and asked the guy putting out the apples if the organic apples were really worth it. He immediately pulled out an organic apple (fuji if I recall correctly) and the same type, but non-organic. He cut out a slice of each apple and let me taste it. The organic apple had significantly better flavor. He explained that the drawback was that the organic apples would go bad quickly so you should only buy what you need, and eat them promptly.
- RussianCow 4y ago
  Anecdotally, I find this to be the case with many fruits, especially citrus. I always figured that a lemon is a lemon and a lime is a lime, but after getting into cocktails and mixology, I realized that there is a night-and-day difference between high-quality fruit and the cheap stuff at your discount grocery store. This doesn't mean organic fruit is always strictly better, but I have found it to be a pretty reliable proxy for quality.
  - MivLives 4y ago
    And god forbid you have premade line juice. Roses is the absolute worst (and people keep bringing it to make daquaris), but the extra effort for fresh juiced is worth it.
    - ricardobeat 4y ago
      You might want to reconsider that, at least for homemade pre-made juice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RA3AaCO7A8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RA3AaCO7A8
      - nerdkid93 4y ago
        I love Super Juice! If I'm going to have friends over for a get together or party, I'll make a batch (or multiple if I want more than 1 fruit) a few days ahead of time to increase the speed in which drinks can be made. The downside is that garnishes still generally tend to need peels, so I still need to have a couple real fruits hanging around.
        RussianCow 4y ago
        For garnishes, unless expressing the oil of a citrus peel is essential to the aroma of your cocktail (like in a Negroni), my "hack" has been to dehydrate citrus wheels as garnish. You can get ~2-3 wheels out of the middle of every citrus fruit and use the rest for super juice. Plus, they look really cool.
jacobr1 4y ago
I love our local farmers market during peak apple season. There are maybe 20 varieties to try across the different farms, more if you consider each farm's variant it own thing. Sadly we still have covid restrictions preventing food-tasting.
thomasahle 4y ago
> 2) The time of year makes a HUGE difference. It seems obvious when I say it, but different varietals from different farms are best in different weeks. Exactly. Don't expect to get a good apple in March. Eat something else instead.
- mike_d 4y ago
  I grew up in the apple producing capital of the world. There is no such thing as a fresh apple in retail. They are all picked just before they are ripe and stored in massive cold storage rooms with all the oxygen pumped out. Apples can spend up to two year in storage, and the best tasting sweetest apples are often the ones that have been stored the longest because they form more sugars. Your entire concept of when an apple is good or not boils down to the time between when the ethylene is pumped into the room to start ripening to when you put it in your mouth.
  - inferiorhuman 4y ago
    As with everything it depends. The heirloom varieties that make it to grocery stores (at least in the Bay Area) have a short enough window each year that they're definitely not being kept in cold storage for too long. The window of availability for something like Gravensteins and Pink Pearls out here is about a month. The sweetest apples you're talking about are probably the mealy ones folks are complaining about (although some varieties are more prone to becoming mealy than others).
    - mike_d 4y ago
      > The window of availability for something like Gravensteins and Pink Pearls out here is about a month. The window for pretty much all apples is a few weeks. That is exactly why they all go to cold storage. If the growers don't pack them directly into storage the brokers and wholesalers will. Apples are worth more in the off season. Unless you are shopping at a farmers market or a roadside stand, they have spent some time in a CA room. > The sweetest apples you're talking about are probably the mealy ones folks are complaining about Mealy apples are caused by the cell walls breaking down. The most common cause is refrigeration after they have been chemically ripened. Either spending too much time in the refrigerated grocery logistics chain or in your refrigerator at home.
Aleksdev 4y ago
You spent a whole month? You must be a big fan of apples.
maxerickson 4y ago
I get Honeycrisp at my local market that I don't like much (other bags are great). I have some hope that the newer trademarked varieties will be able to/choose to control for growing conditions so that they are more consistent.

trip-zip 4y ago

Point #4 is totally on point! I slice lots of apples to share with my kid and there is such an unexpected difference depending on the variety we buy. Some apples really benefit from being cut into wedges!

ortusdux 4y ago
I agree as well, rating apples without considering the use case is a critical oversight! Kenji set the apple rating bar pretty high: https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-what-are-the-best-apples-for-apple-pies-how-to-make-pie https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-what-are-the-best-a...

m463 4y ago

I remember going to one of the local markets and asked the guy putting out the apples if the organic apples were really worth it. He immediately pulled out an organic apple (fuji if I recall correctly) and the same type, but non-organic. He cut out a slice of each apple and let me taste it. The organic apple had significantly better flavor. He explained that the drawback was that the organic apples would go bad quickly so you should only buy what you need, and eat them promptly.

RussianCow 4y ago
Anecdotally, I find this to be the case with many fruits, especially citrus. I always figured that a lemon is a lemon and a lime is a lime, but after getting into cocktails and mixology, I realized that there is a night-and-day difference between high-quality fruit and the cheap stuff at your discount grocery store. This doesn't mean organic fruit is always strictly better, but I have found it to be a pretty reliable proxy for quality.
- MivLives 4y ago
  And god forbid you have premade line juice. Roses is the absolute worst (and people keep bringing it to make daquaris), but the extra effort for fresh juiced is worth it.
  - ricardobeat 4y ago
    You might want to reconsider that, at least for homemade pre-made juice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RA3AaCO7A8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RA3AaCO7A8
    - nerdkid93 4y ago
      I love Super Juice! If I'm going to have friends over for a get together or party, I'll make a batch (or multiple if I want more than 1 fruit) a few days ahead of time to increase the speed in which drinks can be made. The downside is that garnishes still generally tend to need peels, so I still need to have a couple real fruits hanging around.
      - RussianCow 4y ago
        For garnishes, unless expressing the oil of a citrus peel is essential to the aroma of your cocktail (like in a Negroni), my "hack" has been to dehydrate citrus wheels as garnish. You can get ~2-3 wheels out of the middle of every citrus fruit and use the rest for super juice. Plus, they look really cool.

jacobr1 4y ago

I love our local farmers market during peak apple season. There are maybe 20 varieties to try across the different farms, more if you consider each farm's variant it own thing. Sadly we still have covid restrictions preventing food-tasting.

thomasahle 4y ago

> 2) The time of year makes a HUGE difference. It seems obvious when I say it, but different varietals from different farms are best in different weeks. Exactly. Don't expect to get a good apple in March. Eat something else instead.

mike_d 4y ago
I grew up in the apple producing capital of the world. There is no such thing as a fresh apple in retail. They are all picked just before they are ripe and stored in massive cold storage rooms with all the oxygen pumped out. Apples can spend up to two year in storage, and the best tasting sweetest apples are often the ones that have been stored the longest because they form more sugars. Your entire concept of when an apple is good or not boils down to the time between when the ethylene is pumped into the room to start ripening to when you put it in your mouth.
- inferiorhuman 4y ago
  As with everything it depends. The heirloom varieties that make it to grocery stores (at least in the Bay Area) have a short enough window each year that they're definitely not being kept in cold storage for too long. The window of availability for something like Gravensteins and Pink Pearls out here is about a month. The sweetest apples you're talking about are probably the mealy ones folks are complaining about (although some varieties are more prone to becoming mealy than others).
  - mike_d 4y ago
    > The window of availability for something like Gravensteins and Pink Pearls out here is about a month. The window for pretty much all apples is a few weeks. That is exactly why they all go to cold storage. If the growers don't pack them directly into storage the brokers and wholesalers will. Apples are worth more in the off season. Unless you are shopping at a farmers market or a roadside stand, they have spent some time in a CA room. > The sweetest apples you're talking about are probably the mealy ones folks are complaining about Mealy apples are caused by the cell walls breaking down. The most common cause is refrigeration after they have been chemically ripened. Either spending too much time in the refrigerated grocery logistics chain or in your refrigerator at home.

Aleksdev 4y ago

You spent a whole month? You must be a big fan of apples.

maxerickson 4y ago

I get Honeycrisp at my local market that I don't like much (other bags are great). I have some hope that the newer trademarked varieties will be able to/choose to control for growing conditions so that they are more consistent.