15 ms·

Honeycrisp apples went from marvel to mediocre

350 points by haunter 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
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- Spooky23 2y ago
  It depends on the store and supply chain. They seem to grow well in New York, where I live. But if you go to Walmart, you’re getting some strategically sourced crappy apple that was harvested months ago. This time of year, my family hits an apple farm a few times and load up on Macouns, Gala, Cortlands and other local apples.
forthwall 2y ago
I feel like this has happened to most apples, even most fruit, forcing fruit to become all-year fruit in general has made those fruits worse off in the long term in terms of quality due to the necessity to make them long lasting. I used to personally dislike all apples until I started getting them from farmers markets that only sold them seasonally as opposed to supermarkets or costco, suddenly they started to taste like something and not just water.
- ericjmorey 2y ago
  Yup. Incentive to use brand recognition for a lower quality, cheaper to produce in more volume substitution is too strong for a large business to ignore.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    The market is not kind to consumers that put their faith in "brands" without owners. I put brand in quotes because anyone can produce and sell honeycrisp apples. It is not trademarked. Buying one is like buying a hammer on amazon and assuming it will have the quality of different hammer you used.
- sandworm101 2y ago
  A significant number of the "farmers" at farmer's markets arent. Some even buy thier stock from costco and the like. A commercially productive farmer does not have the time to spend a day selling a few apples in the city center. The safer bet is to drive out to roadside stands at the actual farms, then of course then you can only buy the one or two products currently being harvested at that paticular farm. The upside is that, as you are driving rather than walking, you can load up on 50+lbs of corn for friends and family without worry.
  - torstenvl 2y ago
    When I load up on 50+lbs of corn, it isn't for my friends and family to eat. At least not directly.
  - OptionOfT 2y ago
    In California certified farmers markets are not allowed to re-sell produce. Not sure if it's enforced. And it's hard to look up non-existing laws in other states. When I don't find something I assume I'm not searching correctly, but in this case there might just not be a law to find.
- smolder 2y ago
  I love garden grown tomatoes but am frequently disappointed by the flavorless, watery, mushy ones that show up in my sandwiches and salads when I eat out. Seasonality is a factor, maybe.
  - OptionOfT 2y ago
    The tomatoes sold in store are bred for ticker skin to allow for mechanical picking, but that came at the cost of taste. https://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/news/how-mechanical-tomato-harvester-prompted-food-movement https://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/news/how-mechanical-to...
    - smolder 2y ago
      Interesting! I specifically remember wondering "why is the skin so tough on this?" before, when trying to take a bite of a sandwich and ending up with a whole slice of tomato pulling out.
  - bobbylarrybobby 2y ago
    It's not just seasonality per se — it's that produce is simply not bred to taste good anymore. It's designed to be hardy enough to ship, growable all year round, free of blemishes, but not to actually taste good.
  - xnx 2y ago
    I'm not an organic/"local" produce snob, but garden tomatoes are tough to beat for flavor. Campari have the best flavor I've found from grocery stores.
- jajko 2y ago
  People rave about bio produce. Ie we keep buying only bio carrots, they are not much more expensive than regular ones. I like the taste. But when I come home and taste some carrots my parents grow in their garden, oh my god - this is extreme premium in taste world. I understand its a different type, not created for maximal yield as quickly as possible. And so it goes with everything. If you like various berries you can buy in stores, just don't ever taste wild ones in the forest, it will ruin them for you.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- nyclounge 2y ago
  >I feel like this has happened to most apples, even most fruit, forcing fruit to become all-year fruit in general has made those fruits worse off in the long term in terms of quality due to the necessity to make them long lasting. Feel like the same can be said about just all industrial revolution related inventions. The consumer culture caters to the wimp of convenience instead of the whole ecosystem.
malfist 2y ago
Maybe I missed it in that massive article, but did they ever actually come to a conclusion why the apples taste worse today? Except maybe long term storage? It was a really long article about the history of the apple and difficult growing it, but I didn't see the title answered anywhere. It ended taking about surplus and storage requirements.
- sigilis 2y ago
  That was it, yes. Long term storage under refrigeration is harming the quality of the apples at market in the interest of making the apple available year round. The actionable information is in the beginning: honey crisp apples are not worth it anymore buy whatever instead. For me this keeps it from being insufferable. The stuff in the middle demonstrates what the conditions were like before it went mass market, which supports the conclusion that something changed and that it was likely related to the logistics of growing and distributing the apple. If you don't like reading these articles, you could try using an LLM to extract a summary before choosing to dive in. I'm sure there are browser extensions for that.
  - rwiggins 2y ago
    Yeah, having the read the article, my conclusion was that you should avoid honeycrisps from like February through ~August. i.e. only buy them when they're vaguely in season, or not too long afterward. Anecdotally, I had some pretty delicious honeycrisps last night (in WA).
    - Spooky23 2y ago
      You also need to be aware of how the grocer stocks. As an example, during the peak of peach season in the region, a South Carolina Sam’s Club had pallets of California peaches!
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Storage is the answer they proposed. I didn't realize that apples could be stored for up to a year.
guestbest 2y ago
I’ve been buying the organic apples for the last year and for some reason they seem to have the flavor that is missing in the less expensive brands
- jader201 2y ago
  I’ve tried organic on occasion, and never felt they were any better (often not as good). Obviously way too many variables, but anecdotally, I haven’t been that impressed with organic apples.
  - mantas 2y ago
    Yes. Depends if it's organic for the sake of organic label. Local farmer market is always a better bet.
- mistercheph 2y ago
  Organic labeling is one of the largest and most disastrous failures of USDA to protect small farmers. Kroger's simple truth, sunkist's line of organic citruses they sell in "whole foods", etc. the label means nothing, and when you see it in a big name grocery store it's probably a bad thing
kleiba 2y ago
[flagged]
dccoolgai 2y ago
Enshittification but for fruit
- cute_boi 2y ago
  I believe slowly everything is going to "Enshittification" path.
throwawaycities 2y ago
I never particularly liked Honeycrisp apples and never understood the hype, but seeing this #1 on HN I feel like one of the cool kids ahead of the curve on a niche topic. Jokes aside about 5 years ago I began reading about the industry side of all these new trendy apple varieties, much of it is industry driven and interesting for those into that sort of thing. The best in my opinion is Fuji followed closely by Gala.
- lern_too_spel 2y ago
  I have never eaten a bad Fuji. They're inexpensive too, usually 1/2 to 1/3 the price of these crapshoot Johnnies-come-lately.
  - throwawaycities 2y ago
    That’s my experience as well, at least at my local store I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve gotten a mealy Fuji over many years. Also laughing because I perform the same apple analysis - this new variety looks good and admittedly the names are pretty effective marketing (honeycrisp, cosmic, etc…), but they tend to be comparatively expensive and after being let down some many times I just grab the Fuji
- jader201 2y ago
  Hard disagree. I used to love Galas but ultimately realized about 50% of the time they were mealy. Since swapping to Honeycrisp, I’ve yet to have a mealy one. Maybe occasionally (about 1 out of 20-30) there’s one that has a hint of mealiness, but far from what half of the Galas were. I do agree that not all of them are super sweet/flavorful, but still most of them are, and I’d take a less sweet but still crisp apple any day over a sweet but mealy one. I never tried Fuji much, but don’t remember them being anything special. This site [1] (shared at least once on HN) has Fuji even below Gala. [1] https://applerankings.com/ https://applerankings.com/
  - limit499karma 2y ago
    Something really off imho with a food writer that manages to insert foul matter vulgarity into food reviews. It's moved beyond cute into the 'wonder what ails this guy' territory.
zikduruqe 2y ago
If you ever eat Cosmic Crisps, you'll throw rocks at a Honeycrisp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp I think there is a newer cultivar that should be superseding the Cosmic Crisp here soon. Edit - the Kudos Apple. https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/talking-apples-u-m-0 https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/talking-apples-u-m-0
- wetpaws 2y ago
  [dead]
- JDEW 2y ago
  Agreed, the experience the author describes with a Honeycrisp at the beginning of the article is something I recently had with a Cosmic. Let’s hope it lasts.
- angry_moose 2y ago
  I had a few Cosmic Crisps during the overhyped launch and was not that impressed. It was just a pretty-OK apple. Maybe it was a similar issue - off-season and stored too long, but I haven't seen any around here in years (midwest).
  - silisili 2y ago
    Same. People kept telling me it was a Pink Lady with a honeycrisp texture. I tried it a few times, it was neither. Not terrible or anything, but not the holy grail it was made out to be.
  - mastercheif 2y ago
    The Cosmic Crisp was breed to be a “hardier” version of the Honeycrisp, specifically for growing in Washington[1]. I encourage everyone to check out https://applerankings.com https://applerankings.com, I would describe it as Pitchfork for apple breeds. Here’s their review of the Cosmic Crisp: https://applerankings.com/cosmic-crisp-apple-review/ https://applerankings.com/cosmic-crisp-apple-review/ Their top ranked apple is the SweeTango, and I agree with their assessment: https://applerankings.com/sweetango-apple-review/ https://applerankings.com/sweetango-apple-review/ Full ranking list: https://applerankings.com/pick-an-apple/ https://applerankings.com/pick-an-apple/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp
mkoubaa 2y ago
How do we make local apples a bigger thing again
- Spooky23 2y ago
  Change policy to make smaller farm operations a viable business, and make it more difficult to build exurban homes and retail.
- mantas 2y ago
  The problem is people want same variety any day of the year. Stocking local apples as they come is a PITA for big supermarket chains. And most people don't care enough to go to farmer's markets or local specialty shops. Let alone that usually they ain't open on saturady 22:00 when some people find time to go shopping.
- mythrwy 2y ago
  Plant an apple tree
  - qup 2y ago
    Apples are tough to grow in my region, which is formerly known for it. There's the Cedar-apple rust issue, bug issues, and raccoon issues. I planted figs.
- lucidguppy 2y ago
  support pick your own orchards
bastian 2y ago
This is true for most fruits and vegetables and it's the cost of having everything available at any time and for less money.
- Larrikin 2y ago
  Which vegetables taste noticeabley worse? Whenever I travel abroad I try to eat as much fruit as possible because of how terrible nearly all of it is in the US. Melons and mangoes are basically a totally different fruit. My cousin from Kenya refuses to even try his favorite fruit in the US. But vegetables, especially after cooking, seem ok. Only thing I can think of are maybe out of season fresh tomatoes.
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    Basically anything engineered to grow in California, Chile and Arizona. They are optimized for shipment. Some tomatoes are grown in hothouses now and are ok. My son gobbles them up and in the winter lots of them are from Western NY and Ontario. Onions are definitely pushed to have higher sugar content now. Also greens that I source from local farms seasonally usually have better flavor.
  - jonah 2y ago
    Tomatoes, peppers, sweet corn, carrots, lettuce, etc. Lots of produce is bred for large-scale growing and shipping stability.
    - Spivak 2y ago
      God grocery store jalapeños are such a disappointment. They're water flavored.
mjamesaustin 2y ago
This is the same story for every new variety of apple. It becomes popular because of its positive characteristics (sweetness, tanginess, juicyness, crispness), but then slowly over time it gets cultivated for mass market appeal (uniform color, shape, shelf life) and the variety loses what made it good. The best apple variety is generally the new one. The market is strewn with the discarded remains of formerly good apples like Fuji and Gala.
- mikepurvis 2y ago
  My preferred apple is Mutsu, available from a few growers in the late season at my southern Ontario farmers market. According to Wikipedia it's been around since 1949, but perhaps it simply never got popular enough to face these pressures— either way, I find it consistently to be in the right place for me as far as a balance of sweet, tangy, and crispy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutsu_(apple) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutsu_(apple)
  - thomk 2y ago
    Any idea where those could be located on the us side of the border in Detroit?
    - fn-mote 2y ago
      Farmer’s market. Grocery store that isn’t a big chain. They’re here.
    - mikepurvis 2y ago
      Given that it's a Japanese cultivar, I assume they're all over the place, you just have find a market where someone growing them has them for sale.
    - Jgrubb 2y ago
      Aka “crispin” if that helps. Every apple farmer around here in NW NJ grows them, never seen them in a store. Also my favorite.
  - 2y ago
Modified3019 2y ago
Basically, they are being stored too long, because Honeycrisp season is only in September, and the apple industry in Washington state is trying to provide them year round. This is compounded by the subtle effect of the trees being adapted for Minnesota, whereas Washington’s climate is much warmer.
Alex3917 2y ago
SnapDragon is a vastly improved version of Honeycrisp anyway. The only real issue with it is that only growers within New York State are allowed to grow it, so it's not nearly as available.
- matsemann 2y ago
  Curious, is that something that can be enforced?
  - gs17 2y ago
    They likely have a patent, although searching "apple snapdragon patent" mostly gets results involving Qualcomm. Edit: found the patent https://patents.google.com/patent/USPP22228 https://patents.google.com/patent/USPP22228
    - papercrane 2y ago
      Looks like Cornell owns the rights to the apple and are working exclusively with a NY apple growers collective to commercialize the apple. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/08/snapdragon-and-rubyfrost-are-new-apple-varieties https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/08/snapdragon-and-ruby...
  - aspenmayer 2y ago
    Doubtful? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proplifting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proplifting
  - throwup238 2y ago
    Apple trees aren’t grown from seed because the offspring will have huge genetic variability and won’t resemble the parent. Instead they take a hardy rootstock species and graft scionwood from the fruit producing trees on to it. Once the apple variety is grown, repeating it without the graft is impractical and you can't just save seed from store bought apples and expect to get the same thing. An entire variety might be cloned from a single tree that produced the best fruit out of hundreds. For new designer varieties getting commercial access to the grafts usually requires signing contract that you won’t create and sell your own grafts so the creator can control who gets it.
tptacek 2y ago
She doesn't really explain why the honeycrisps she gets at the farmer's market are hit-or-miss now, which would have been a more interesting story to unwind.
- angry_moose 2y ago
  If its anything like our farmers market I'd bet they aren't actually locally grown. It's really hard to unpack which of our vendors are truly local; and which just buy produce from wholesalers, slap a "Name's Family Farm" sign on the table, and pretend to be locally grown. You'd be a lot better off going to the actual orchard, but those are often 1+ hours away.
  - exmadscientist 2y ago
    Exactly! I'm in Seattle. You would think I could reliably find good apples here. I can not. Even at farmer's markets, it's obvious some of the offerings have been stored... which makes me question the stuff that isn't obvious. At least it's better than the supermarkets, which have been selling New Zealand apples... in Washington... in September... yeah no thanks!
    - gammarator 2y ago
      Keep a look out for https://www.collinsfamilyorchards.com/ https://www.collinsfamilyorchards.com/ at your market, or try their CSA!
      - allenfarris 2y ago
        They also sell apples on their website for local delivery in the Seattle area (in semi-large quantities only). Their honeycrisps are very good in my opinion, I usually buy 40 pounds a couple times a year. They also have other good fruit in season (e.g. peaches, nectarines; cherries are okay).
- sitkack 2y ago
  Folks are known to sell national supply chain produce at farmer's markets where they can get high prices.
Electricniko 2y ago
The first couple of years I found Honeycrisp at my local market, which would have been 2001 and 2002 (because I'll never forget a lot of things from September 2001), the apples were HUGE. More like a large grapefruit than an apple in size. They still had the great flavor and texture of later Honeycrisps, it was a huge shock compared to normal apples at the time. It may have been something with the weather that produced them like that, but man would I love to see those things pop up again.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  I was buying them for my daughter to eat at lunch at school and she sent me a picture of her honercrisp compared to her friends' apples. It was like midgets versus Giants... Giants for the win
- erikerikson 2y ago
  I was told by a grower that a large factor in apple size is the number of apples on the tree. Growers thin the fruit to control fruit size. Kinda like the tree is going to make some set tonnage of apple and if you thin them, it loads that tonnage into the remaining apples. Apparently we like larger apples in the US while smaller apples are preferred in China.
notwhereyouare 2y ago
Helped a friend film a video about what happened to red delicious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgZNDTJSvJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgZNDTJSvJQ
- derbOac 2y ago
  I used to live in the area around where the red delicious was first developed, and they are indeed very different from what people became used to. The original red delicious - assuming the local orchards have something closer to the original - is/was much smaller, rounder, and closer to something like a macintosh. If you had one you wouldn't recognize it as red delicious unless someone told you and then you'd be confused. I worry a bit the same thing is happening with honeycrisp. In addition to the the out-of-season sales (some of the dates people are talking about with honeycrisp are ridiculous), there's genetic drift. The University of Minnesota has always been worried about this happening, speaking to staff with their apple program. The problem is clones get propagated from clones of clones, some of which are fraudulently hybrids with other varieties, and eventually you end up with something that's not really the same anymore. Big growers choose ancestors that produce fruit with the characteristics that benefit them, and by that point buyers don't remember the original anymore. The problem, as people are pointing out, is largely what large-scale agriculture does to plant varieties in terms of breeding, as well as the problems with freshness. What the growers and distributors want from fruit is not what you want as a consumer. There's probably some important lessons there for capitalism or markets in general.
jader201 2y ago
This rankings site [1] was shared on HN a couple years ago [2], and since then I’ve switched to Honeycrisp. While I agree they aren’t always the most tasty, they are almost always (like 98%) crisp and never mealy to the point I want to stop eating it, unlike nearly every other breed I’ve tried (which admittedly is only about 7-8 or the most common ones). I will take a less flavorful crisp apple 100% of the time over a mealy apple. So even a mediocre Honeycrisp is, to me, still way better than nearly all the other ones. [1] https://applerankings.com/ https://applerankings.com/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33639206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33639206
- Tomte 2y ago
  I don‘t care much for Kanzi and Fuji and Pink Lady. To me, Braeburn is good, Boskoop is great, and Berlepsch is amazing, but sometimes hard to get outside the apple grow regions.
- eps 2y ago
  The list doesn't have Tentation and it has Jazz at mediocre. I wouldn't put much trust in it, at least if you are in Europe.
  - onli 2y ago
    Yeah, it goes completely against my taste (and maybe against how apples are over here)? I had only delicious Fuji apples for example, from consistency to taste (if you like sweet at least), which the site describes as utterly awful. Especially the local ones are awesome. Incomprehensible ranking for me.
  - acdha 2y ago
    Growing conditions really matter. We really like Gold Rush apples and our farmers market has three orchards who grow them but the ones from one of those vendors consistently aren’t as good, even though it’s clearly the same variety. Something about Pennsylvania vs. northern Maryland made more of a difference than I thought.
    - 2y ago
prpl 2y ago
They are just bad in the offseason though? New batches should be good? My favorite is the kanzi, but it’s not really available year round. Most apples peak in November anyway
- kseistrup 2y ago
  Kanzi (syn.: Nicoter) is the only apple I eat. All other I can get around here are just meh. Ufortunately, Kani/Nicoter are rather uncommon.
lucidguppy 2y ago
I wonder if you could test for crispness using ultrasonic tech. Just make sauce out of the mealy ones.
kylecazar 2y ago
I went through this just yesterday. Bought a bunch of Honeycrisps, and was underwhelmed compared to my memory of them. I also don't like Cosmic Crisps anymore. Side note: Those new jumbo blueberries are insane.
AdmiralAsshat 2y ago
Just seems to happen with every apple I like, unfortunately. I think I'm currently on Cosmic Crisp or Jazz apples as my mains. I give them about five years before they start to suck.
YackerLose 2y ago
I always cut them into slices, then leave them in an airtight plastic container for an hour or two, so the juice can seep out a little.
- mistercheph 2y ago
  Do you do that with your apples too?
mind-blight 2y ago
Cosmic Crisp is a new varietal that seems like a solid successor to honey crisp. It seems like they started in a cooler climate (I first encountered them in northern Oregon), and they're fantastic.
- scottyeager 2y ago
  They were developed in Washington and apparently that's a first for a widely grown variety: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
0xbadcafebee 2y ago
If you live within a few hours of apple country, do yourself a favor next fall and go discover some new varietals. There are hundreds produced commercially (read: some farm grows them) that will never see a supermarket. Try a bunch and use your favorites for fun dishes you rarely make: pies, tarts, cider, butter, cut them into oatmeal, sandwiches, salads. They can taste so amazing and different that it's a fun adventure. (Plus then you can pretend you're a fancy food person, saying to your friends "Ooh, the Macoun had a good season this year!") And if you have a bit of land, start some trees! They are a wonderful gift for future generations. Plant a bunch and leave them alone, let the survivors flourish. Worst case they die and you have some good firewood for a bbq.
dmitrig01 2y ago
Apple grower here. I still don't understand Honeycrisps. I'm on the younger side, so I haven't seen that many years of Honeycrisp, but I feel I have never had a good one. My experience of Honeycrisp is that it is super crunchy, almost too much so, but completely devoid of flavor. To me, it's like eating crunchy water. As others have pointed out, this article doesn't actually explain why (or even if) Honeycrisp has gotten worse. One thing I will add to this discussion, though I don't know if it is true in the case of Honeycrisp, is that it is definitely not a matter of breeding (nor selective breeding, breeding for storage, etc): in order to produce more apple trees, Honeycrisps (or any other variety) aren't bred, they are asexually propagated through grafting. That means all Honeycrisp trees are more-or-less genetically identical. That said, just like any organism, as trees grow and produce new cells at the tips of branches, there is always a chance for a mutation. Sometimes these branch mutations (called "sports") have visible genetic differences: stronger coloration, earlier ripening, or perhaps earlier storage (though this is harder to notice). This is how Red Delicious went from a wonderful apple to tasteless, mealy cardboard: sports were selected over time that prioritized storage and color over texture and flavor. As an apple grower, I have had the opportunity to taste Honeycrisps straight off the tree, and to me, they taste just as flavorless as the ones I get from the store. I grow almost all heirloom varieties, and I can tell you there is one that for me is head-and-shoulders above the rest: Wickson Crab. If you are in California, I recommend marking your calendar for September to search this variety out at the farmers markets (or better, plant a tree yourself!). There are many other wonderful varieties that stand out from grocery store apples. In a pinch, I'll get a Pink Lady from the store, as I find it's the most flavorful of the commonly available apples, but I find they sit heavy in my stomach in a way that homegrown or farmer's market apples don't. I believe this is to do with the fact that apples available at the grocery store are picked early, before the starches have converted into sugars, so the higher starch content may be harder to digest. Hint: any apple with an "apple green" undercoat is underripe; to pick a ripe apple, wait for that bright green to mellow out or change colors. For redder apples, it can be harder to see, but most apples have some green visible under the red (Pink Lady is again a great example of this). And yes, Granny Smith apples are so sour precisely because they are picked and sold underripe; a ripe Granny Smith is yellow and sweet.
- jt2190 2y ago
limit499karma 2y ago
TIL "10 billion apples a year get picked by hand in the state of Washington". Interview question: estimate number of pickers and number of trees.
W-Stool 2y ago
Now do chicken. Here in the USA chickens are getting bigger (I saw a 6.5 pound chicken in the store the other day) and blander. The tissue to me seems very spongy. What is going on with chickens?
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Yeah it's pretty crazy. The ones the supermarket uses for the whole roasted chickens seem to be smaller, so you might ask if they sell them uncooked. Or check for local farms that sell free-range birds. They will have a more varied diet including insects, grubs, and not just corn or whatever they feed the birds at the big factory farms. They won't be cheap however.
- kccqzy 2y ago
  Recently I've resolved to buy only Silkie chicken* from stores. They are moderately sized and still taste good. They are easy to tell due to their black skin. *: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkie
nikole9696 2y ago
I'm with all the folks who say they've swapped Honeycrisp for Cosmic Crisp. The Honeycrisp I get now is a poor shadow of what it used to be. This article is very interesting. I suspected the quality shift had to do with mass market selling, but it's nice to see the long form version of what I suspected.
- dgacmu 2y ago
  Cosmic crisp has such good flesh but the skin is awfully tough. Is there a best of both worlds? (I like sweetango too but it's hard to find)
quijoteuniv 2y ago
TLDR: The Honeycrisp apple, developed by the University of Minnesota in the 1980s, was initially celebrated for its crisp texture and balanced flavor, quickly becoming a consumer favorite. However, its delicate nature and susceptibility to disorders like bitter pit made it challenging to cultivate, particularly in warmer regions such as Washington State, a major hub for apple production. Despite these challenges, growers planted Honeycrisp trees extensively to meet high demand, storing the apples for prolonged periods to ensure year-round availability. This mass production and extended storage compromised the apple’s quality, leading to an oversupply and reduced consumer satisfaction. Consequently, the Honeycrisp has become a commoditized apple, losing the exceptional qualities that once distinguished it.
NelsonMinar 2y ago
Storage is the key culprit. One solution for that in the US is to buy New Zealand apples when it's nowhere near apple season in the northern hemisphere. Crazy to ship apples half-way round the world but they are delicious. I mostly see Envy apples from NZ in California. Garlic is another item ruined by long storage. Christopher Ranch is reportedly storing garlic for 2+ years in refrigeration. That's why it doesn't taste like garlic anymore.
- IneffablePigeon 2y ago
  Feels like a better solution is to buy when it’s in season and find something else to enjoy at other times
  - bluGill 2y ago
    I need to eat in winter though which means nothing is in season near me. Either it is shipped long distances or it is stored.
deleted 2y ago
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peterbonney 2y ago
I used to have an orchard with c. 35 apple trees, 2 of which were honeycrisp. I can confirm that they are tricky trees to manage. I was theoretically in a good area for honeycrisps. But the trees were prone to all sorts of maladies that didn’t affect my other varietals, including antique varietals that are traditionally thought of as “difficult”. And when they did grow fruit it was usually small and misshapen. Apples are interesting and this is a great example of the unexpected challenges you can face growing them. Every honeycrisp tree is a perfect clone of the very first one, but the environment of each is not a perfect clone of their original environment. And the interplay of genetics and growing conditions can have very unpredictable results.
- dekhn 2y ago
  can you grow them on better rootstock with a graft?
  - floren 2y ago
    They were definitely already grafted, that's how the cloning works.
    - peterbonney 2y ago
      Correct.
LanceJones 2y ago
Just did a CTRL-F and I am shocked nobody is talking about the magnificent McIntosh. Does the rest of the world (outside of Canada) not get them? The fruit has red and green skin, a tart flavour, and tender white flesh, which ripens in late September. They've converted many, many people from other variants...
- sevensor 2y ago
  A great variety that we can get in season where I live in the US. I think they don’t keep or transport well, and they’re mostly only available at farm stands around here.
- echelon 2y ago
  No offense, just a joke - one of the ranking sites has a humorous appraisal of McIntoshes: https://applerankings.com/ https://applerankings.com/
- dekhn 2y ago
  Macoun and Mcintosh define apples for me- from a pic-ur-own stand in new england. I would eat so many that my teeth started to feel sensitive from the acidity.
- slothtrop 2y ago
  They are so mealy. The flavor is nice, but I hate the texture. Empire apples have a similar tart flavor, but with a crisp flesh similar to a golden or red delicious.
  - nearbuy 2y ago
    If it was mealy, it was probably improperly stored or grown in too warm weather. They aren't normally mealy. They're more tender and less crisp than Honeycrisp and have a pleasant texture.
    - slothtrop 2y ago
      I'm referring to whatever texture Macintosh usually have. It's not pleasant to me.
poulsbohemian 2y ago
Just a side note here... it's shocking to drive through the orchards of Washington and Oregon and see how much fruit never gets harvested because there's no commercial market for it. Acres and acres of fruit left on the trees until they fall off and rot because they aren't varieties desirable in the market any longer. Why don't farmers replace with new varieties? In some cases they do, but the capital expense is considerable to tear out trees / bushes / etc and replace and wait for mature fruit.
stephanheijl 2y ago
I would normally only buy apples around september/october in the Netherlands, trying to get them fresh from local orchards when possible. Elstar is amazing when plucked right from the tree, but becomes mealy before the end of the year IMO. My new go to is the Magic Star variety, which has been sold as "Sprank" for the last 3 years at least in the Netherlands. These apples keep amazingly well; they ran out of stock around the summer in the last two years, but I found them delicious year round. I hope that this cultivar does not befall the same fate as the Honeycrisp, which I had the pleasure of tasting 5 years ago.
_1tem 2y ago
It’s not just apples, dear. Mass market capitalism does this to *everything*. Everything just becomes so bland. When I moved from my native Canada to a poor backwater Eastern European country (not in the EU) I suddenly noticed how different the experience is with everything, from your local coffee shop to the tech coworking spaces. The experience was just so much more personal, rich, and boutique, and lovely. Now I can’t stand Starbucks and WeWork, and most Western consumer brands anymore. Sure, being in a poor country you also get a lot of rotten apples as well, but the variety is just so invigorating.
- mistercheph 2y ago
  If you lived in a western country and thought WeWork seemed like a nice place to work, and Starbucks was a nice place to get coffee...
  - _1tem 2y ago
    I did not say they were nice. That’s my entire point. These are examples of the most popular Western brands though. Same goes for any popular Western brand of anything. I even prefer Ukrainian local toothpaste to Colgate. Tastes better
russellbeattie 2y ago
One thing I never realized is that apple varieties can't be grown from seeds. "This is because seedling apples are 'extreme heterozygotes'. Rather than resembling their parents, seedlings are all different from each other and from their parents." [1] "To propagate a cultivar [variety], material from the original tree (scion) is joined to a rootstock. The rootstock provides the roots for the new plant and the scion forms the top part of the new plant, which produces the fruit. The rootstock comes from another cultivar selected specifically for its ability to grow well in the soil and induce desirable growth habits of the scion (such as dwarfing)." "The scion is introduced to the rootstock by either grafting or budding. In grafting, a length of dormant wood from the original tree is notched into the rootstock. In budding, small buds are notched into the rootstock. Budding produces more trees from the same amount of wood than grafting." [2] So when you read "cultivation", it's not like breeding green beans or corn, where you can crossbreed plants and come up with a new type that will "breed true" and then you can make a bunch of seeds to distribute. Cultivation is basically growing a bunch of trees, finding the right combo, then creating a bunch of them So commercial growers with orchards will buy trees from breeders who create that type of tree by managing the grafting/budding process. Apparently, though we don't know when breeding started, it's been going on for thousands of years. Also, Johnny Appleseed wasn't doing anyone favors by spreading apple seeds everywhere because the trees would produce mostly inedible apples. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Breeding https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Breeding 2. https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/844-breeding-a-new-apple-cultivar https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/844-breeding-a-new...
- coopreme 2y ago
  Mr Appleseed was working his magic to plant a future for delicious apple juice booze. They should’ve called him Cider Claus.
bastloing 2y ago
Really enjoy honeycrisp apples with caramel or chocolate coating! Yummy!
dahart 2y ago
Where can I find Red Delicious varieties from back when they were considered good? I remembered them being fine/decent/whatever when I was a kid, and recently just out of curiosity bought some Red Delicious from a local grocery store and was surprised to find they were completely inedible and totally disgusting. Like not just less sweet or less tangy, but super gross and almost like eating mushy plastic-wax wrapped in leather, and nothing like what I remembered. It sounds like they actually have been bred to be different now, so are there places that still have the older variety?
- pton_xd 2y ago
  Pretty sure they were always mealy and disgusting. I never liked apples growing up because the only two options were basically Red Delicious and Granny Smith. Maybe some Braeburn, Fuji, and Galas now and then, none of which are particularly good either. Honeycrisps really saved the fruit!
bbstats 2y ago
Walmart honeycrisp in October was the best apple I've ever had
- mastercheif 2y ago
  As someone who goes to Walmart once or twice a year, I too was blown away with a Honeycrisp I bought from them a month ago.
- aacook 2y ago
  Same at Aldi
kaydub 2y ago
Best apples I've ever had were cosmic crisps I picked off the tree.
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dave333 2y ago
60 years ago Cox's was by far my favorite apple for flavor but they could get soft and mealy in storage. Gala is the closest descendant that is much crisper and still has a lot of the Cox's flavor. I've never liked crisp or acidic apples, except in crumbles or pies where Granny Smith is my goto.
mring33621 2y ago
My family has been going to the same orchard in SW Michigan for maybe 8 years in a row. At first, they only had 2 rows of Honeycrisp apples. Maybe 2% of the trees there... Now more rows are 'Honeycrisp' than not. As far as I know, they didn't replace all those previously 'not Honeycrisp' trees, though. And they taste like paint. Ugh.
NicOnHN 2y ago
I’m curious if incorporating technology, like image analysis apps (size, colour, quality), could help address some of these issues. Any thoughts from any of the growers out there?
- juju_hacker 2y ago
  I use this technology and have found it to be very accurate. I use the TrueFruit product from a company named Aerobotics.
- WARules 2y ago
  We have also been using TrueFruit. We manage tons of galas, honeycrisps and fujis. Honeycrisps are still our majority but fujis and galas are close
blindriver 2y ago
Wow I thought I was the only one who thought this? My timeline matches pretty close to the authors. I worked at a startup around 2013 that had fruit deliveries, and I ate a honeycrisp apple there for the first time in my life and I fell in love. Like the author, I started eating those apples out of desire, not because it was the only thing left. But in the last 2 years, I didn't notice it, but I have been pretty dissatisfied with them but I never really thought about it until this article. It sheds light as to exactly why I don't like it anymore, and that's pretty sad that the industry is getting into that state.
wkirby 2y ago
Cosmic crisp is the truth.
travisgriggs 2y ago
Wow. Weird when something on HN hits this close to home. I work in AgTech (automated irrigation) in Washington State. I can attest to the love-hate boom-bust relationship this variety is having with the Washington apple farmer. The article leaves a key point out. This fruit tree is really temperamental to water correctly. Irrigators love and hate this thing. Some fruit bears overwatering gracefully. But with this tree, it begs for water, but if you overwater it even a little, the fruit fails easily. I've watched some big players (Pytech) dump millions of dollars into closed (fully automated), open (just telemetry and recommendation, human then waters) and hybrid loop irrigation methods to try and get this right. It remains a real pain to get right. (edit: the cosmic crisp is also difficult to grow Just Right(tm))
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Conversely, what are the easiest Washington state apple varieties to grow?
  - travisgriggs 2y ago
    Great question. I honestly don’t know. Great example of how “what people complain about” makes up a disproportionate amount of our knowledge.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      The biased selection of only working on the problem side. Been there.
    - easygenes 2y ago
      Can you list the varieties that you know of to be problems? That at least gives a clue to which are less problematic.
  - drewcoo 2y ago
    https://treefruit.wsu.edu/web-article/apple-varieties/ https://treefruit.wsu.edu/web-article/apple-varieties/
- 2y ago
rcpt 2y ago
Can anyone explain why tomatoes always suck now?
Al-Khwarizmi 2y ago
So it seems that we get different apples in Europe and the US? I'm from Spain and haven't even heard of Honeycrisp or Cosmic Crisp. Here, the common apples you can see in supermarkets are Golden Delicious (called just Golden here), Royal Gala, Pink Lady, Fuji, Pippin, Granny Smith, Red "Delicious", Kanzi, maybe a few more than I'm forgetting, but no Honeycrisp or Cosmic Crisp as far as I know.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- throawayonthe 2y ago
  afaik almost all of those are available in the us/canada as well
- purplerabbit 2y ago
  Sounds like your market is a few years behind the US :) Seriously, I hope you get honey/cosmic crisps -- they converted me to buying apples regularly.
- seabass-labrax 2y ago
  I feel that the choice is also limited in Britain, perhaps even more so than in Spain. Independent greengrocers might have some more unusual varieties than supermarkets, but I have never seen Honeycrisp anywhere. Seems there could be a killing to be made in importing them here, providing of course that they are the 'marvel' and not the 'mediocre' ones! If Honeycrisp are supposed to grow properly only in climates like Minnesota's, then it doesn't seem likely that they will ever actually be grown in Britain (or Spain for that matter).
  - Nursie 2y ago
    Britain grows over two thousand varieties of apple, some going back several hundred years. The issue is the supermarkets only carry a few types. It would seem a shame to import a commercial variant from the US.
lif 2y ago
since folks are sharing favorites: Red Astrachan ftw (iykyk)
__turbobrew__ 2y ago
I live in the Okanagan in British Columbia and the local honeycrisp are still good here. I think the colder climate and smaller scale farms here make for a better apple. We also have long term storage facilities where the apples are stored in nitrogen which really helps with freshness. The local place I go to is straight from the grower and they have a 24/7 cold storage facility of apple bins operated by the honour system. All apples are $1 a pound. Part of the issue here is that wineries have been historically more profitable than orchards so there are many fewer places to buy local fruit. In the past two years however, there has been cold snaps which have killed 50% and 90% of grape vines subsequently so people are starting to question the stability of wineries.
davidu 2y ago
This article doesn't explain why a hudson valley grown honeycrisp would taste worse now than 10 years ago? Those are still coming from the boutique farms where you can pick them off the tree. It only explains why big apple in Washington is ruining the national honeycrisp market. Or did I miss something?
etempleton 2y ago
Honeycrisp apples are still great if you can find a local orchard that sells them direct. From the grocery store they are a bit more inconsistent and merely an upper tier Apple. I suspect the popularity of honeycrisp will eventually lead it to the same fate as Red Delicious, but only time will tell.
gammarator 2y ago
The wide range of preferences expressed here makes me think that the best apple is one grown near you—and different varieties are better suited for different climate regions.
FpUser 2y ago
Unfortunately I can confirm it. I was buying those like crazy but not anymore. Their once incredible taste has gone.
irrational 2y ago
> making it the state’s fourth-largest cultivar after Red Delicious, Gala, and Fuji. Red Delicious has to be the nastiest apple cultivar in existence. Why in the world are they growing that many? Replace them with something decent like Pink Lady.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  I really don't understand how anyone enjoys Red "Delicious". They've got a thick, tough, waxy skin and the inside is a tasteless mush with a horrible texture - how I imagine that dandelion heads would taste like if you tried to eat a load of them.
- poulsbohemian 2y ago
  Probably historical... it wasn't that many years ago that the Red Delicious was the go-to and it wasn't the mealy, thick-skinned apple of today. If you've got hundreds or even thousands of acres planted, it's a once a generation thing to bet on a new variety or move to a different fruit. I suspect today the red delicious market is two-fold: some government programs (think food banks) and the juice market. There might also be apple sauce producers etc who really don't care about variety, they just want cheap
m3kw9 2y ago
This proves there is always something better and people are never happy. I myself is perfectly happy with Gala apples.
unnamed76ri 2y ago
I’ve never understood the hype of honeycrisp. Sugarbees are my first choice and if they aren’t available I’ll go with Fuji. I’ve got an apple tree that I’ve grafted 20 varieties onto. But honeycrisp isn’t one of them.
Daneel_ 2y ago
Are Envy apples a thing in the US? They’re available here in Australia and are light years better than everything else I’ve ever had, at basically the same price point.
- quacker 2y ago
  Yes, I have Envy apples at my grocery stores in the US. Wikipedia says they are grown in Washington state here. Envy apples are my favorite. They tend to be more expensive than Fuji, but are about the same price now.
chaostheory 2y ago
Fujis are great. They are consistently crisp AND sweet. None can still compare, even the new varieties are lacking something that a Fuji already has.
Blackthorn 2y ago
Everyone is so obsessed with WA and MN apples that they miss out on the good ones grown in New York, which used to be known for its apples! Shizukas can be grown here, which I strongly recommend. But honestly most varieties you can get direct from a farm are edible (except Red Delicious, which for some reason continues to be grown even in independent farms even though it's universally acknowledged to be trash).
addicted 2y ago
If you’re in the NorthEast try and get some Macoun (pronounced Ma-cown) apples in the fall. They spoil fast and don’t transport well because the skin is extremely thin, but those same qualities make them excellent apples to eat. Some ratings have them ranked a little lower because they aren’t very sweet but that’s what I love about them. They taste like apple. Not sugar. And the crisp/soft balance is awesome. Edit: I read the apple rankings site which rates them very poorly. But if you actually read the review the complaint is about shelf life. Read the comments where people have actually tasted it fresh and most of the commenters consider it the best apple they’ve tasted. But you gotta eat it freshly picked and/or as soon as you get it.
bumbledraven 2y ago
While defining x/0 = 0 is sound, it has tradeoffs, as OP acknowledges. In "Papers with computer-checked proofs" (2024), D. J. Bernstien wrote: > There is a claim ... that “dividing by 0 is not allowed in mathematics, and hence this cannot be relevant to their work”, but in fact a mathematician is permitted to deduce b ≠ 0 from c = a/b, since a/b is undefined for b = 0. Redefining the notation to allow b = 0 breaks this. Unless it occurs to the author to state a conclusion c = a/b and a conclusion b ≠ 0, the proof assistant won’t check that b ≠ 0, whereas the reader will think that this has been checked. https://cr.yp.to/papers/pwccp-20240727.pdf https://cr.yp.to/papers/pwccp-20240727.pdf
- shaftway 2y ago
  I suspect that D.J. Bernstein's preferred apples are of the silicon variety, but I could be mistaken. He is from New York, one of the early states where Honeycrisps were grown, but Long Island, which doesn't have much agriculture. Maybe he'll see this and can chime in.
blakeburch 2y ago
I eat apples almost every day and have found that some growers are just simply better than others. Have you ever looked at the sticker brand on your apples? If not, pay attention next time. Rainier has the best Honeycrisps. They're phenomenal. All others pale in comparison. This realization made my wife and I pay more attention across all of our produce. We'll choose to buy produce based on the brand that's currently in stock. It feels absurdly picky, but I find it refreshing to at least know why a batch of brussel sprouts, apples, oranges, etc. tasted more bitter or less flavorful than normal. It makes sense when you think about it. People care where their coffee beans come from, with flavor preferences of one region versus another. Why shouldn't we have flavor preferences based on who grows our produce?

350 points by haunter 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

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Spooky23 2y ago
It depends on the store and supply chain. They seem to grow well in New York, where I live. But if you go to Walmart, you’re getting some strategically sourced crappy apple that was harvested months ago. This time of year, my family hits an apple farm a few times and load up on Macouns, Gala, Cortlands and other local apples.

forthwall 2y ago

I feel like this has happened to most apples, even most fruit, forcing fruit to become all-year fruit in general has made those fruits worse off in the long term in terms of quality due to the necessity to make them long lasting. I used to personally dislike all apples until I started getting them from farmers markets that only sold them seasonally as opposed to supermarkets or costco, suddenly they started to taste like something and not just water.

ericjmorey 2y ago
Yup. Incentive to use brand recognition for a lower quality, cheaper to produce in more volume substitution is too strong for a large business to ignore.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  The market is not kind to consumers that put their faith in "brands" without owners. I put brand in quotes because anyone can produce and sell honeycrisp apples. It is not trademarked. Buying one is like buying a hammer on amazon and assuming it will have the quality of different hammer you used.
sandworm101 2y ago
A significant number of the "farmers" at farmer's markets arent. Some even buy thier stock from costco and the like. A commercially productive farmer does not have the time to spend a day selling a few apples in the city center. The safer bet is to drive out to roadside stands at the actual farms, then of course then you can only buy the one or two products currently being harvested at that paticular farm. The upside is that, as you are driving rather than walking, you can load up on 50+lbs of corn for friends and family without worry.
- torstenvl 2y ago
  When I load up on 50+lbs of corn, it isn't for my friends and family to eat. At least not directly.
- OptionOfT 2y ago
  In California certified farmers markets are not allowed to re-sell produce. Not sure if it's enforced. And it's hard to look up non-existing laws in other states. When I don't find something I assume I'm not searching correctly, but in this case there might just not be a law to find.
smolder 2y ago
I love garden grown tomatoes but am frequently disappointed by the flavorless, watery, mushy ones that show up in my sandwiches and salads when I eat out. Seasonality is a factor, maybe.
- OptionOfT 2y ago
  The tomatoes sold in store are bred for ticker skin to allow for mechanical picking, but that came at the cost of taste. https://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/news/how-mechanical-tomato-harvester-prompted-food-movement https://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/news/how-mechanical-to...
  - smolder 2y ago
    Interesting! I specifically remember wondering "why is the skin so tough on this?" before, when trying to take a bite of a sandwich and ending up with a whole slice of tomato pulling out.
- bobbylarrybobby 2y ago
  It's not just seasonality per se — it's that produce is simply not bred to taste good anymore. It's designed to be hardy enough to ship, growable all year round, free of blemishes, but not to actually taste good.
- xnx 2y ago
  I'm not an organic/"local" produce snob, but garden tomatoes are tough to beat for flavor. Campari have the best flavor I've found from grocery stores.
jajko 2y ago
People rave about bio produce. Ie we keep buying only bio carrots, they are not much more expensive than regular ones. I like the taste. But when I come home and taste some carrots my parents grow in their garden, oh my god - this is extreme premium in taste world. I understand its a different type, not created for maximal yield as quickly as possible. And so it goes with everything. If you like various berries you can buy in stores, just don't ever taste wild ones in the forest, it will ruin them for you.
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nyclounge 2y ago
>I feel like this has happened to most apples, even most fruit, forcing fruit to become all-year fruit in general has made those fruits worse off in the long term in terms of quality due to the necessity to make them long lasting. Feel like the same can be said about just all industrial revolution related inventions. The consumer culture caters to the wimp of convenience instead of the whole ecosystem.

malfist 2y ago

Maybe I missed it in that massive article, but did they ever actually come to a conclusion why the apples taste worse today? Except maybe long term storage? It was a really long article about the history of the apple and difficult growing it, but I didn't see the title answered anywhere. It ended taking about surplus and storage requirements.

sigilis 2y ago
That was it, yes. Long term storage under refrigeration is harming the quality of the apples at market in the interest of making the apple available year round. The actionable information is in the beginning: honey crisp apples are not worth it anymore buy whatever instead. For me this keeps it from being insufferable. The stuff in the middle demonstrates what the conditions were like before it went mass market, which supports the conclusion that something changed and that it was likely related to the logistics of growing and distributing the apple. If you don't like reading these articles, you could try using an LLM to extract a summary before choosing to dive in. I'm sure there are browser extensions for that.
- rwiggins 2y ago
  Yeah, having the read the article, my conclusion was that you should avoid honeycrisps from like February through ~August. i.e. only buy them when they're vaguely in season, or not too long afterward. Anecdotally, I had some pretty delicious honeycrisps last night (in WA).
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    You also need to be aware of how the grocer stocks. As an example, during the peak of peach season in the region, a South Carolina Sam’s Club had pallets of California peaches!
s1artibartfast 2y ago
Storage is the answer they proposed. I didn't realize that apples could be stored for up to a year.

guestbest 2y ago

I’ve been buying the organic apples for the last year and for some reason they seem to have the flavor that is missing in the less expensive brands

jader201 2y ago
I’ve tried organic on occasion, and never felt they were any better (often not as good). Obviously way too many variables, but anecdotally, I haven’t been that impressed with organic apples.
- mantas 2y ago
  Yes. Depends if it's organic for the sake of organic label. Local farmer market is always a better bet.
mistercheph 2y ago
Organic labeling is one of the largest and most disastrous failures of USDA to protect small farmers. Kroger's simple truth, sunkist's line of organic citruses they sell in "whole foods", etc. the label means nothing, and when you see it in a big name grocery store it's probably a bad thing

kleiba 2y ago

[flagged]

dccoolgai 2y ago

Enshittification but for fruit

cute_boi 2y ago
I believe slowly everything is going to "Enshittification" path.

throwawaycities 2y ago

I never particularly liked Honeycrisp apples and never understood the hype, but seeing this #1 on HN I feel like one of the cool kids ahead of the curve on a niche topic. Jokes aside about 5 years ago I began reading about the industry side of all these new trendy apple varieties, much of it is industry driven and interesting for those into that sort of thing. The best in my opinion is Fuji followed closely by Gala.

lern_too_spel 2y ago
I have never eaten a bad Fuji. They're inexpensive too, usually 1/2 to 1/3 the price of these crapshoot Johnnies-come-lately.
- throwawaycities 2y ago
  That’s my experience as well, at least at my local store I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve gotten a mealy Fuji over many years. Also laughing because I perform the same apple analysis - this new variety looks good and admittedly the names are pretty effective marketing (honeycrisp, cosmic, etc…), but they tend to be comparatively expensive and after being let down some many times I just grab the Fuji
jader201 2y ago
Hard disagree. I used to love Galas but ultimately realized about 50% of the time they were mealy. Since swapping to Honeycrisp, I’ve yet to have a mealy one. Maybe occasionally (about 1 out of 20-30) there’s one that has a hint of mealiness, but far from what half of the Galas were. I do agree that not all of them are super sweet/flavorful, but still most of them are, and I’d take a less sweet but still crisp apple any day over a sweet but mealy one. I never tried Fuji much, but don’t remember them being anything special. This site [1] (shared at least once on HN) has Fuji even below Gala. [1] https://applerankings.com/ https://applerankings.com/
- limit499karma 2y ago
  Something really off imho with a food writer that manages to insert foul matter vulgarity into food reviews. It's moved beyond cute into the 'wonder what ails this guy' territory.

zikduruqe 2y ago

If you ever eat Cosmic Crisps, you'll throw rocks at a Honeycrisp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp I think there is a newer cultivar that should be superseding the Cosmic Crisp here soon. Edit - the Kudos Apple. https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/talking-apples-u-m-0 https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/talking-apples-u-m-0

wetpaws 2y ago
[dead]
JDEW 2y ago
Agreed, the experience the author describes with a Honeycrisp at the beginning of the article is something I recently had with a Cosmic. Let’s hope it lasts.
angry_moose 2y ago
I had a few Cosmic Crisps during the overhyped launch and was not that impressed. It was just a pretty-OK apple. Maybe it was a similar issue - off-season and stored too long, but I haven't seen any around here in years (midwest).
- silisili 2y ago
  Same. People kept telling me it was a Pink Lady with a honeycrisp texture. I tried it a few times, it was neither. Not terrible or anything, but not the holy grail it was made out to be.
- mastercheif 2y ago
  The Cosmic Crisp was breed to be a “hardier” version of the Honeycrisp, specifically for growing in Washington[1]. I encourage everyone to check out https://applerankings.com https://applerankings.com, I would describe it as Pitchfork for apple breeds. Here’s their review of the Cosmic Crisp: https://applerankings.com/cosmic-crisp-apple-review/ https://applerankings.com/cosmic-crisp-apple-review/ Their top ranked apple is the SweeTango, and I agree with their assessment: https://applerankings.com/sweetango-apple-review/ https://applerankings.com/sweetango-apple-review/ Full ranking list: https://applerankings.com/pick-an-apple/ https://applerankings.com/pick-an-apple/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp

mkoubaa 2y ago

How do we make local apples a bigger thing again

Spooky23 2y ago
Change policy to make smaller farm operations a viable business, and make it more difficult to build exurban homes and retail.
mantas 2y ago
The problem is people want same variety any day of the year. Stocking local apples as they come is a PITA for big supermarket chains. And most people don't care enough to go to farmer's markets or local specialty shops. Let alone that usually they ain't open on saturady 22:00 when some people find time to go shopping.
mythrwy 2y ago
Plant an apple tree
- qup 2y ago
  Apples are tough to grow in my region, which is formerly known for it. There's the Cedar-apple rust issue, bug issues, and raccoon issues. I planted figs.
lucidguppy 2y ago
support pick your own orchards

bastian 2y ago

This is true for most fruits and vegetables and it's the cost of having everything available at any time and for less money.

Larrikin 2y ago
Which vegetables taste noticeabley worse? Whenever I travel abroad I try to eat as much fruit as possible because of how terrible nearly all of it is in the US. Melons and mangoes are basically a totally different fruit. My cousin from Kenya refuses to even try his favorite fruit in the US. But vegetables, especially after cooking, seem ok. Only thing I can think of are maybe out of season fresh tomatoes.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  Basically anything engineered to grow in California, Chile and Arizona. They are optimized for shipment. Some tomatoes are grown in hothouses now and are ok. My son gobbles them up and in the winter lots of them are from Western NY and Ontario. Onions are definitely pushed to have higher sugar content now. Also greens that I source from local farms seasonally usually have better flavor.
- jonah 2y ago
  Tomatoes, peppers, sweet corn, carrots, lettuce, etc. Lots of produce is bred for large-scale growing and shipping stability.
  - Spivak 2y ago
    God grocery store jalapeños are such a disappointment. They're water flavored.

mjamesaustin 2y ago

This is the same story for every new variety of apple. It becomes popular because of its positive characteristics (sweetness, tanginess, juicyness, crispness), but then slowly over time it gets cultivated for mass market appeal (uniform color, shape, shelf life) and the variety loses what made it good. The best apple variety is generally the new one. The market is strewn with the discarded remains of formerly good apples like Fuji and Gala.

mikepurvis 2y ago
My preferred apple is Mutsu, available from a few growers in the late season at my southern Ontario farmers market. According to Wikipedia it's been around since 1949, but perhaps it simply never got popular enough to face these pressures— either way, I find it consistently to be in the right place for me as far as a balance of sweet, tangy, and crispy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutsu_(apple) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutsu_(apple)
- thomk 2y ago
  Any idea where those could be located on the us side of the border in Detroit?
  - fn-mote 2y ago
    Farmer’s market. Grocery store that isn’t a big chain. They’re here.
  - mikepurvis 2y ago
    Given that it's a Japanese cultivar, I assume they're all over the place, you just have find a market where someone growing them has them for sale.
  - Jgrubb 2y ago
    Aka “crispin” if that helps. Every apple farmer around here in NW NJ grows them, never seen them in a store. Also my favorite.
- 2y ago

Modified3019 2y ago

Basically, they are being stored too long, because Honeycrisp season is only in September, and the apple industry in Washington state is trying to provide them year round. This is compounded by the subtle effect of the trees being adapted for Minnesota, whereas Washington’s climate is much warmer.

Alex3917 2y ago

SnapDragon is a vastly improved version of Honeycrisp anyway. The only real issue with it is that only growers within New York State are allowed to grow it, so it's not nearly as available.

matsemann 2y ago
Curious, is that something that can be enforced?
- gs17 2y ago
  They likely have a patent, although searching "apple snapdragon patent" mostly gets results involving Qualcomm. Edit: found the patent https://patents.google.com/patent/USPP22228 https://patents.google.com/patent/USPP22228
  - papercrane 2y ago
    Looks like Cornell owns the rights to the apple and are working exclusively with a NY apple growers collective to commercialize the apple. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/08/snapdragon-and-rubyfrost-are-new-apple-varieties https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/08/snapdragon-and-ruby...
- aspenmayer 2y ago
  Doubtful? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proplifting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proplifting
- throwup238 2y ago
  Apple trees aren’t grown from seed because the offspring will have huge genetic variability and won’t resemble the parent. Instead they take a hardy rootstock species and graft scionwood from the fruit producing trees on to it. Once the apple variety is grown, repeating it without the graft is impractical and you can't just save seed from store bought apples and expect to get the same thing. An entire variety might be cloned from a single tree that produced the best fruit out of hundreds. For new designer varieties getting commercial access to the grafts usually requires signing contract that you won’t create and sell your own grafts so the creator can control who gets it.

tptacek 2y ago

She doesn't really explain why the honeycrisps she gets at the farmer's market are hit-or-miss now, which would have been a more interesting story to unwind.

angry_moose 2y ago
If its anything like our farmers market I'd bet they aren't actually locally grown. It's really hard to unpack which of our vendors are truly local; and which just buy produce from wholesalers, slap a "Name's Family Farm" sign on the table, and pretend to be locally grown. You'd be a lot better off going to the actual orchard, but those are often 1+ hours away.
- exmadscientist 2y ago
  Exactly! I'm in Seattle. You would think I could reliably find good apples here. I can not. Even at farmer's markets, it's obvious some of the offerings have been stored... which makes me question the stuff that isn't obvious. At least it's better than the supermarkets, which have been selling New Zealand apples... in Washington... in September... yeah no thanks!
  - gammarator 2y ago
    Keep a look out for https://www.collinsfamilyorchards.com/ https://www.collinsfamilyorchards.com/ at your market, or try their CSA!
    - allenfarris 2y ago
      They also sell apples on their website for local delivery in the Seattle area (in semi-large quantities only). Their honeycrisps are very good in my opinion, I usually buy 40 pounds a couple times a year. They also have other good fruit in season (e.g. peaches, nectarines; cherries are okay).
sitkack 2y ago
Folks are known to sell national supply chain produce at farmer's markets where they can get high prices.

Electricniko 2y ago

The first couple of years I found Honeycrisp at my local market, which would have been 2001 and 2002 (because I'll never forget a lot of things from September 2001), the apples were HUGE. More like a large grapefruit than an apple in size. They still had the great flavor and texture of later Honeycrisps, it was a huge shock compared to normal apples at the time. It may have been something with the weather that produced them like that, but man would I love to see those things pop up again.

readthenotes1 2y ago
I was buying them for my daughter to eat at lunch at school and she sent me a picture of her honercrisp compared to her friends' apples. It was like midgets versus Giants... Giants for the win
erikerikson 2y ago
I was told by a grower that a large factor in apple size is the number of apples on the tree. Growers thin the fruit to control fruit size. Kinda like the tree is going to make some set tonnage of apple and if you thin them, it loads that tonnage into the remaining apples. Apparently we like larger apples in the US while smaller apples are preferred in China.

notwhereyouare 2y ago

Helped a friend film a video about what happened to red delicious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgZNDTJSvJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgZNDTJSvJQ

derbOac 2y ago
I used to live in the area around where the red delicious was first developed, and they are indeed very different from what people became used to. The original red delicious - assuming the local orchards have something closer to the original - is/was much smaller, rounder, and closer to something like a macintosh. If you had one you wouldn't recognize it as red delicious unless someone told you and then you'd be confused. I worry a bit the same thing is happening with honeycrisp. In addition to the the out-of-season sales (some of the dates people are talking about with honeycrisp are ridiculous), there's genetic drift. The University of Minnesota has always been worried about this happening, speaking to staff with their apple program. The problem is clones get propagated from clones of clones, some of which are fraudulently hybrids with other varieties, and eventually you end up with something that's not really the same anymore. Big growers choose ancestors that produce fruit with the characteristics that benefit them, and by that point buyers don't remember the original anymore. The problem, as people are pointing out, is largely what large-scale agriculture does to plant varieties in terms of breeding, as well as the problems with freshness. What the growers and distributors want from fruit is not what you want as a consumer. There's probably some important lessons there for capitalism or markets in general.

jader201 2y ago

This rankings site [1] was shared on HN a couple years ago [2], and since then I’ve switched to Honeycrisp. While I agree they aren’t always the most tasty, they are almost always (like 98%) crisp and never mealy to the point I want to stop eating it, unlike nearly every other breed I’ve tried (which admittedly is only about 7-8 or the most common ones). I will take a less flavorful crisp apple 100% of the time over a mealy apple. So even a mediocre Honeycrisp is, to me, still way better than nearly all the other ones. [1] https://applerankings.com/ https://applerankings.com/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33639206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33639206

Tomte 2y ago
I don‘t care much for Kanzi and Fuji and Pink Lady. To me, Braeburn is good, Boskoop is great, and Berlepsch is amazing, but sometimes hard to get outside the apple grow regions.
eps 2y ago
The list doesn't have Tentation and it has Jazz at mediocre. I wouldn't put much trust in it, at least if you are in Europe.
- onli 2y ago
  Yeah, it goes completely against my taste (and maybe against how apples are over here)? I had only delicious Fuji apples for example, from consistency to taste (if you like sweet at least), which the site describes as utterly awful. Especially the local ones are awesome. Incomprehensible ranking for me.
- acdha 2y ago
  Growing conditions really matter. We really like Gold Rush apples and our farmers market has three orchards who grow them but the ones from one of those vendors consistently aren’t as good, even though it’s clearly the same variety. Something about Pennsylvania vs. northern Maryland made more of a difference than I thought.
  - 2y ago

prpl 2y ago

They are just bad in the offseason though? New batches should be good? My favorite is the kanzi, but it’s not really available year round. Most apples peak in November anyway

kseistrup 2y ago
Kanzi (syn.: Nicoter) is the only apple I eat. All other I can get around here are just meh. Ufortunately, Kani/Nicoter are rather uncommon.

lucidguppy 2y ago

I wonder if you could test for crispness using ultrasonic tech. Just make sauce out of the mealy ones.

kylecazar 2y ago

I went through this just yesterday. Bought a bunch of Honeycrisps, and was underwhelmed compared to my memory of them. I also don't like Cosmic Crisps anymore. Side note: Those new jumbo blueberries are insane.

AdmiralAsshat 2y ago

Just seems to happen with every apple I like, unfortunately. I think I'm currently on Cosmic Crisp or Jazz apples as my mains. I give them about five years before they start to suck.

YackerLose 2y ago

I always cut them into slices, then leave them in an airtight plastic container for an hour or two, so the juice can seep out a little.

mistercheph 2y ago
Do you do that with your apples too?

mind-blight 2y ago

Cosmic Crisp is a new varietal that seems like a solid successor to honey crisp. It seems like they started in a cooler climate (I first encountered them in northern Oregon), and they're fantastic.

scottyeager 2y ago
They were developed in Washington and apparently that's a first for a widely grown variety: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp

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0xbadcafebee 2y ago

If you live within a few hours of apple country, do yourself a favor next fall and go discover some new varietals. There are hundreds produced commercially (read: some farm grows them) that will never see a supermarket. Try a bunch and use your favorites for fun dishes you rarely make: pies, tarts, cider, butter, cut them into oatmeal, sandwiches, salads. They can taste so amazing and different that it's a fun adventure. (Plus then you can pretend you're a fancy food person, saying to your friends "Ooh, the Macoun had a good season this year!") And if you have a bit of land, start some trees! They are a wonderful gift for future generations. Plant a bunch and leave them alone, let the survivors flourish. Worst case they die and you have some good firewood for a bbq.

dmitrig01 2y ago

Apple grower here. I still don't understand Honeycrisps. I'm on the younger side, so I haven't seen that many years of Honeycrisp, but I feel I have never had a good one. My experience of Honeycrisp is that it is super crunchy, almost too much so, but completely devoid of flavor. To me, it's like eating crunchy water. As others have pointed out, this article doesn't actually explain why (or even if) Honeycrisp has gotten worse. One thing I will add to this discussion, though I don't know if it is true in the case of Honeycrisp, is that it is definitely not a matter of breeding (nor selective breeding, breeding for storage, etc): in order to produce more apple trees, Honeycrisps (or any other variety) aren't bred, they are asexually propagated through grafting. That means all Honeycrisp trees are more-or-less genetically identical. That said, just like any organism, as trees grow and produce new cells at the tips of branches, there is always a chance for a mutation. Sometimes these branch mutations (called "sports") have visible genetic differences: stronger coloration, earlier ripening, or perhaps earlier storage (though this is harder to notice). This is how Red Delicious went from a wonderful apple to tasteless, mealy cardboard: sports were selected over time that prioritized storage and color over texture and flavor. As an apple grower, I have had the opportunity to taste Honeycrisps straight off the tree, and to me, they taste just as flavorless as the ones I get from the store. I grow almost all heirloom varieties, and I can tell you there is one that for me is head-and-shoulders above the rest: Wickson Crab. If you are in California, I recommend marking your calendar for September to search this variety out at the farmers markets (or better, plant a tree yourself!). There are many other wonderful varieties that stand out from grocery store apples. In a pinch, I'll get a Pink Lady from the store, as I find it's the most flavorful of the commonly available apples, but I find they sit heavy in my stomach in a way that homegrown or farmer's market apples don't. I believe this is to do with the fact that apples available at the grocery store are picked early, before the starches have converted into sugars, so the higher starch content may be harder to digest. Hint: any apple with an "apple green" undercoat is underripe; to pick a ripe apple, wait for that bright green to mellow out or change colors. For redder apples, it can be harder to see, but most apples have some green visible under the red (Pink Lady is again a great example of this). And yes, Granny Smith apples are so sour precisely because they are picked and sold underripe; a ripe Granny Smith is yellow and sweet.

jt2190 2y ago

limit499karma 2y ago

TIL "10 billion apples a year get picked by hand in the state of Washington". Interview question: estimate number of pickers and number of trees.

W-Stool 2y ago

Now do chicken. Here in the USA chickens are getting bigger (I saw a 6.5 pound chicken in the store the other day) and blander. The tissue to me seems very spongy. What is going on with chickens?

SoftTalker 2y ago
Yeah it's pretty crazy. The ones the supermarket uses for the whole roasted chickens seem to be smaller, so you might ask if they sell them uncooked. Or check for local farms that sell free-range birds. They will have a more varied diet including insects, grubs, and not just corn or whatever they feed the birds at the big factory farms. They won't be cheap however.
kccqzy 2y ago
Recently I've resolved to buy only Silkie chicken* from stores. They are moderately sized and still taste good. They are easy to tell due to their black skin. *: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkie

nikole9696 2y ago

I'm with all the folks who say they've swapped Honeycrisp for Cosmic Crisp. The Honeycrisp I get now is a poor shadow of what it used to be. This article is very interesting. I suspected the quality shift had to do with mass market selling, but it's nice to see the long form version of what I suspected.

dgacmu 2y ago
Cosmic crisp has such good flesh but the skin is awfully tough. Is there a best of both worlds? (I like sweetango too but it's hard to find)

quijoteuniv 2y ago

TLDR: The Honeycrisp apple, developed by the University of Minnesota in the 1980s, was initially celebrated for its crisp texture and balanced flavor, quickly becoming a consumer favorite. However, its delicate nature and susceptibility to disorders like bitter pit made it challenging to cultivate, particularly in warmer regions such as Washington State, a major hub for apple production. Despite these challenges, growers planted Honeycrisp trees extensively to meet high demand, storing the apples for prolonged periods to ensure year-round availability. This mass production and extended storage compromised the apple’s quality, leading to an oversupply and reduced consumer satisfaction. Consequently, the Honeycrisp has become a commoditized apple, losing the exceptional qualities that once distinguished it.

NelsonMinar 2y ago

Storage is the key culprit. One solution for that in the US is to buy New Zealand apples when it's nowhere near apple season in the northern hemisphere. Crazy to ship apples half-way round the world but they are delicious. I mostly see Envy apples from NZ in California. Garlic is another item ruined by long storage. Christopher Ranch is reportedly storing garlic for 2+ years in refrigeration. That's why it doesn't taste like garlic anymore.

IneffablePigeon 2y ago
Feels like a better solution is to buy when it’s in season and find something else to enjoy at other times
- bluGill 2y ago
  I need to eat in winter though which means nothing is in season near me. Either it is shipped long distances or it is stored.

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peterbonney 2y ago

I used to have an orchard with c. 35 apple trees, 2 of which were honeycrisp. I can confirm that they are tricky trees to manage. I was theoretically in a good area for honeycrisps. But the trees were prone to all sorts of maladies that didn’t affect my other varietals, including antique varietals that are traditionally thought of as “difficult”. And when they did grow fruit it was usually small and misshapen. Apples are interesting and this is a great example of the unexpected challenges you can face growing them. Every honeycrisp tree is a perfect clone of the very first one, but the environment of each is not a perfect clone of their original environment. And the interplay of genetics and growing conditions can have very unpredictable results.

dekhn 2y ago
can you grow them on better rootstock with a graft?
- floren 2y ago
  They were definitely already grafted, that's how the cloning works.
  - peterbonney 2y ago
    Correct.

LanceJones 2y ago

Just did a CTRL-F and I am shocked nobody is talking about the magnificent McIntosh. Does the rest of the world (outside of Canada) not get them? The fruit has red and green skin, a tart flavour, and tender white flesh, which ripens in late September. They've converted many, many people from other variants...

sevensor 2y ago
A great variety that we can get in season where I live in the US. I think they don’t keep or transport well, and they’re mostly only available at farm stands around here.
echelon 2y ago
No offense, just a joke - one of the ranking sites has a humorous appraisal of McIntoshes: https://applerankings.com/ https://applerankings.com/
dekhn 2y ago
Macoun and Mcintosh define apples for me- from a pic-ur-own stand in new england. I would eat so many that my teeth started to feel sensitive from the acidity.
slothtrop 2y ago
They are so mealy. The flavor is nice, but I hate the texture. Empire apples have a similar tart flavor, but with a crisp flesh similar to a golden or red delicious.
- nearbuy 2y ago
  If it was mealy, it was probably improperly stored or grown in too warm weather. They aren't normally mealy. They're more tender and less crisp than Honeycrisp and have a pleasant texture.
  - slothtrop 2y ago
    I'm referring to whatever texture Macintosh usually have. It's not pleasant to me.

poulsbohemian 2y ago

Just a side note here... it's shocking to drive through the orchards of Washington and Oregon and see how much fruit never gets harvested because there's no commercial market for it. Acres and acres of fruit left on the trees until they fall off and rot because they aren't varieties desirable in the market any longer. Why don't farmers replace with new varieties? In some cases they do, but the capital expense is considerable to tear out trees / bushes / etc and replace and wait for mature fruit.

stephanheijl 2y ago

I would normally only buy apples around september/october in the Netherlands, trying to get them fresh from local orchards when possible. Elstar is amazing when plucked right from the tree, but becomes mealy before the end of the year IMO. My new go to is the Magic Star variety, which has been sold as "Sprank" for the last 3 years at least in the Netherlands. These apples keep amazingly well; they ran out of stock around the summer in the last two years, but I found them delicious year round. I hope that this cultivar does not befall the same fate as the Honeycrisp, which I had the pleasure of tasting 5 years ago.

_1tem 2y ago

It’s not just apples, dear. Mass market capitalism does this to *everything*. Everything just becomes so bland. When I moved from my native Canada to a poor backwater Eastern European country (not in the EU) I suddenly noticed how different the experience is with everything, from your local coffee shop to the tech coworking spaces. The experience was just so much more personal, rich, and boutique, and lovely. Now I can’t stand Starbucks and WeWork, and most Western consumer brands anymore. Sure, being in a poor country you also get a lot of rotten apples as well, but the variety is just so invigorating.

mistercheph 2y ago
If you lived in a western country and thought WeWork seemed like a nice place to work, and Starbucks was a nice place to get coffee...
- _1tem 2y ago
  I did not say they were nice. That’s my entire point. These are examples of the most popular Western brands though. Same goes for any popular Western brand of anything. I even prefer Ukrainian local toothpaste to Colgate. Tastes better

russellbeattie 2y ago

One thing I never realized is that apple varieties can't be grown from seeds. "This is because seedling apples are 'extreme heterozygotes'. Rather than resembling their parents, seedlings are all different from each other and from their parents." [1] "To propagate a cultivar [variety], material from the original tree (scion) is joined to a rootstock. The rootstock provides the roots for the new plant and the scion forms the top part of the new plant, which produces the fruit. The rootstock comes from another cultivar selected specifically for its ability to grow well in the soil and induce desirable growth habits of the scion (such as dwarfing)." "The scion is introduced to the rootstock by either grafting or budding. In grafting, a length of dormant wood from the original tree is notched into the rootstock. In budding, small buds are notched into the rootstock. Budding produces more trees from the same amount of wood than grafting." [2] So when you read "cultivation", it's not like breeding green beans or corn, where you can crossbreed plants and come up with a new type that will "breed true" and then you can make a bunch of seeds to distribute. Cultivation is basically growing a bunch of trees, finding the right combo, then creating a bunch of them So commercial growers with orchards will buy trees from breeders who create that type of tree by managing the grafting/budding process. Apparently, though we don't know when breeding started, it's been going on for thousands of years. Also, Johnny Appleseed wasn't doing anyone favors by spreading apple seeds everywhere because the trees would produce mostly inedible apples. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Breeding https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Breeding 2. https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/844-breeding-a-new-apple-cultivar https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/844-breeding-a-new...

coopreme 2y ago
Mr Appleseed was working his magic to plant a future for delicious apple juice booze. They should’ve called him Cider Claus.

bastloing 2y ago

Really enjoy honeycrisp apples with caramel or chocolate coating! Yummy!

dahart 2y ago

Where can I find Red Delicious varieties from back when they were considered good? I remembered them being fine/decent/whatever when I was a kid, and recently just out of curiosity bought some Red Delicious from a local grocery store and was surprised to find they were completely inedible and totally disgusting. Like not just less sweet or less tangy, but super gross and almost like eating mushy plastic-wax wrapped in leather, and nothing like what I remembered. It sounds like they actually have been bred to be different now, so are there places that still have the older variety?

pton_xd 2y ago
Pretty sure they were always mealy and disgusting. I never liked apples growing up because the only two options were basically Red Delicious and Granny Smith. Maybe some Braeburn, Fuji, and Galas now and then, none of which are particularly good either. Honeycrisps really saved the fruit!

bbstats 2y ago

Walmart honeycrisp in October was the best apple I've ever had

mastercheif 2y ago
As someone who goes to Walmart once or twice a year, I too was blown away with a Honeycrisp I bought from them a month ago.
aacook 2y ago
Same at Aldi

kaydub 2y ago

Best apples I've ever had were cosmic crisps I picked off the tree.

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dave333 2y ago

60 years ago Cox's was by far my favorite apple for flavor but they could get soft and mealy in storage. Gala is the closest descendant that is much crisper and still has a lot of the Cox's flavor. I've never liked crisp or acidic apples, except in crumbles or pies where Granny Smith is my goto.

mring33621 2y ago

My family has been going to the same orchard in SW Michigan for maybe 8 years in a row. At first, they only had 2 rows of Honeycrisp apples. Maybe 2% of the trees there... Now more rows are 'Honeycrisp' than not. As far as I know, they didn't replace all those previously 'not Honeycrisp' trees, though. And they taste like paint. Ugh.

NicOnHN 2y ago

I’m curious if incorporating technology, like image analysis apps (size, colour, quality), could help address some of these issues. Any thoughts from any of the growers out there?

juju_hacker 2y ago
I use this technology and have found it to be very accurate. I use the TrueFruit product from a company named Aerobotics.
WARules 2y ago
We have also been using TrueFruit. We manage tons of galas, honeycrisps and fujis. Honeycrisps are still our majority but fujis and galas are close

blindriver 2y ago

Wow I thought I was the only one who thought this? My timeline matches pretty close to the authors. I worked at a startup around 2013 that had fruit deliveries, and I ate a honeycrisp apple there for the first time in my life and I fell in love. Like the author, I started eating those apples out of desire, not because it was the only thing left. But in the last 2 years, I didn't notice it, but I have been pretty dissatisfied with them but I never really thought about it until this article. It sheds light as to exactly why I don't like it anymore, and that's pretty sad that the industry is getting into that state.

wkirby 2y ago

Cosmic crisp is the truth.

travisgriggs 2y ago

Wow. Weird when something on HN hits this close to home. I work in AgTech (automated irrigation) in Washington State. I can attest to the love-hate boom-bust relationship this variety is having with the Washington apple farmer. The article leaves a key point out. This fruit tree is really temperamental to water correctly. Irrigators love and hate this thing. Some fruit bears overwatering gracefully. But with this tree, it begs for water, but if you overwater it even a little, the fruit fails easily. I've watched some big players (Pytech) dump millions of dollars into closed (fully automated), open (just telemetry and recommendation, human then waters) and hybrid loop irrigation methods to try and get this right. It remains a real pain to get right. (edit: the cosmic crisp is also difficult to grow Just Right(tm))

ethbr1 2y ago
Conversely, what are the easiest Washington state apple varieties to grow?
- travisgriggs 2y ago
  Great question. I honestly don’t know. Great example of how “what people complain about” makes up a disproportionate amount of our knowledge.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    The biased selection of only working on the problem side. Been there.
  - easygenes 2y ago
    Can you list the varieties that you know of to be problems? That at least gives a clue to which are less problematic.
- drewcoo 2y ago
  https://treefruit.wsu.edu/web-article/apple-varieties/ https://treefruit.wsu.edu/web-article/apple-varieties/
2y ago

rcpt 2y ago

Can anyone explain why tomatoes always suck now?

Al-Khwarizmi 2y ago

So it seems that we get different apples in Europe and the US? I'm from Spain and haven't even heard of Honeycrisp or Cosmic Crisp. Here, the common apples you can see in supermarkets are Golden Delicious (called just Golden here), Royal Gala, Pink Lady, Fuji, Pippin, Granny Smith, Red "Delicious", Kanzi, maybe a few more than I'm forgetting, but no Honeycrisp or Cosmic Crisp as far as I know.

deleted 2y ago
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throawayonthe 2y ago
afaik almost all of those are available in the us/canada as well
purplerabbit 2y ago
Sounds like your market is a few years behind the US :) Seriously, I hope you get honey/cosmic crisps -- they converted me to buying apples regularly.
seabass-labrax 2y ago
I feel that the choice is also limited in Britain, perhaps even more so than in Spain. Independent greengrocers might have some more unusual varieties than supermarkets, but I have never seen Honeycrisp anywhere. Seems there could be a killing to be made in importing them here, providing of course that they are the 'marvel' and not the 'mediocre' ones! If Honeycrisp are supposed to grow properly only in climates like Minnesota's, then it doesn't seem likely that they will ever actually be grown in Britain (or Spain for that matter).
- Nursie 2y ago
  Britain grows over two thousand varieties of apple, some going back several hundred years. The issue is the supermarkets only carry a few types. It would seem a shame to import a commercial variant from the US.

lif 2y ago

since folks are sharing favorites: Red Astrachan ftw (iykyk)

__turbobrew__ 2y ago

I live in the Okanagan in British Columbia and the local honeycrisp are still good here. I think the colder climate and smaller scale farms here make for a better apple. We also have long term storage facilities where the apples are stored in nitrogen which really helps with freshness. The local place I go to is straight from the grower and they have a 24/7 cold storage facility of apple bins operated by the honour system. All apples are $1 a pound. Part of the issue here is that wineries have been historically more profitable than orchards so there are many fewer places to buy local fruit. In the past two years however, there has been cold snaps which have killed 50% and 90% of grape vines subsequently so people are starting to question the stability of wineries.

davidu 2y ago

This article doesn't explain why a hudson valley grown honeycrisp would taste worse now than 10 years ago? Those are still coming from the boutique farms where you can pick them off the tree. It only explains why big apple in Washington is ruining the national honeycrisp market. Or did I miss something?

etempleton 2y ago

Honeycrisp apples are still great if you can find a local orchard that sells them direct. From the grocery store they are a bit more inconsistent and merely an upper tier Apple. I suspect the popularity of honeycrisp will eventually lead it to the same fate as Red Delicious, but only time will tell.

gammarator 2y ago

The wide range of preferences expressed here makes me think that the best apple is one grown near you—and different varieties are better suited for different climate regions.

FpUser 2y ago

Unfortunately I can confirm it. I was buying those like crazy but not anymore. Their once incredible taste has gone.

irrational 2y ago

> making it the state’s fourth-largest cultivar after Red Delicious, Gala, and Fuji. Red Delicious has to be the nastiest apple cultivar in existence. Why in the world are they growing that many? Replace them with something decent like Pink Lady.

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
I really don't understand how anyone enjoys Red "Delicious". They've got a thick, tough, waxy skin and the inside is a tasteless mush with a horrible texture - how I imagine that dandelion heads would taste like if you tried to eat a load of them.
poulsbohemian 2y ago
Probably historical... it wasn't that many years ago that the Red Delicious was the go-to and it wasn't the mealy, thick-skinned apple of today. If you've got hundreds or even thousands of acres planted, it's a once a generation thing to bet on a new variety or move to a different fruit. I suspect today the red delicious market is two-fold: some government programs (think food banks) and the juice market. There might also be apple sauce producers etc who really don't care about variety, they just want cheap

m3kw9 2y ago

This proves there is always something better and people are never happy. I myself is perfectly happy with Gala apples.

unnamed76ri 2y ago

I’ve never understood the hype of honeycrisp. Sugarbees are my first choice and if they aren’t available I’ll go with Fuji. I’ve got an apple tree that I’ve grafted 20 varieties onto. But honeycrisp isn’t one of them.

Daneel_ 2y ago

Are Envy apples a thing in the US? They’re available here in Australia and are light years better than everything else I’ve ever had, at basically the same price point.

quacker 2y ago
Yes, I have Envy apples at my grocery stores in the US. Wikipedia says they are grown in Washington state here. Envy apples are my favorite. They tend to be more expensive than Fuji, but are about the same price now.

chaostheory 2y ago

Fujis are great. They are consistently crisp AND sweet. None can still compare, even the new varieties are lacking something that a Fuji already has.

Blackthorn 2y ago

Everyone is so obsessed with WA and MN apples that they miss out on the good ones grown in New York, which used to be known for its apples! Shizukas can be grown here, which I strongly recommend. But honestly most varieties you can get direct from a farm are edible (except Red Delicious, which for some reason continues to be grown even in independent farms even though it's universally acknowledged to be trash).

addicted 2y ago

If you’re in the NorthEast try and get some Macoun (pronounced Ma-cown) apples in the fall. They spoil fast and don’t transport well because the skin is extremely thin, but those same qualities make them excellent apples to eat. Some ratings have them ranked a little lower because they aren’t very sweet but that’s what I love about them. They taste like apple. Not sugar. And the crisp/soft balance is awesome. Edit: I read the apple rankings site which rates them very poorly. But if you actually read the review the complaint is about shelf life. Read the comments where people have actually tasted it fresh and most of the commenters consider it the best apple they’ve tasted. But you gotta eat it freshly picked and/or as soon as you get it.

bumbledraven 2y ago

While defining x/0 = 0 is sound, it has tradeoffs, as OP acknowledges. In "Papers with computer-checked proofs" (2024), D. J. Bernstien wrote: > There is a claim ... that “dividing by 0 is not allowed in mathematics, and hence this cannot be relevant to their work”, but in fact a mathematician is permitted to deduce b ≠ 0 from c = a/b, since a/b is undefined for b = 0. Redefining the notation to allow b = 0 breaks this. Unless it occurs to the author to state a conclusion c = a/b and a conclusion b ≠ 0, the proof assistant won’t check that b ≠ 0, whereas the reader will think that this has been checked. https://cr.yp.to/papers/pwccp-20240727.pdf https://cr.yp.to/papers/pwccp-20240727.pdf

shaftway 2y ago
I suspect that D.J. Bernstein's preferred apples are of the silicon variety, but I could be mistaken. He is from New York, one of the early states where Honeycrisps were grown, but Long Island, which doesn't have much agriculture. Maybe he'll see this and can chime in.

blakeburch 2y ago

I eat apples almost every day and have found that some growers are just simply better than others. Have you ever looked at the sticker brand on your apples? If not, pay attention next time. Rainier has the best Honeycrisps. They're phenomenal. All others pale in comparison. This realization made my wife and I pay more attention across all of our produce. We'll choose to buy produce based on the brand that's currently in stock. It feels absurdly picky, but I find it refreshing to at least know why a batch of brussel sprouts, apples, oranges, etc. tasted more bitter or less flavorful than normal. It makes sense when you think about it. People care where their coffee beans come from, with flavor preferences of one region versus another. Why shouldn't we have flavor preferences based on who grows our produce?