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))
I actually live in MN so am spoiled by the easy access to quality varieties. Honeycrisp are so "common" here (grown here) that I definitely avoid WA grown stock that seeps into grocery stores more quickly than ever.
I currently have 4 apple trees on the property but have only lived with apple trees for about the last 4 years now. I can't even imagine getting the conditions for a Honeycrisp tree right given the trees I have seem very temperamental. Last year (summer of '23) was a horrible year for our trees due to the summer long drought. Some of my trees are in irrigation zones so they did get decent water, but still failed to yield much.
This year was bonkers. I clocked 34" of rain in my backyard and all 4 trees had the highest yield so far. While these varieties aren't as delicious as a freshly picked, ripe Honeycrisp, they're still 1000x better than any mealy, soft apple from the store that was picked 6+ months ago. The other thing with Honeycrisp is that all of the local orchards have netting protecting all the Honeycrisp because, since the skin is so thin, they're highly susceptible to hail damage. They just seem like too much work given I can buy them grown here.
Curious how long it will be before the automation is perfected? Is this a normal cycle with a new breed of apple?
A property with apple trees (and space to grow more) is seriously enviable. Hands in earth is one of my favorite therapies. I've been contemplating a move for a few years and this additional inspiration may just be the tipping point.
We (the industry) paid (barely) an army of immigrant labor to run around turn valves on/off on 4 wheelers. The (automated) irrigation systems are (primarily) to reduce labor costs. There are some plusses to precision watering as well. But the industry is about labor cost reduction.
"We" only grew varieties that were less finicky, or only grew them in climates to which they were adapted. We also had less consolidation so failures were less systemic.
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.
If you get a chance, try WineCrisp. Loads of flavor and stubbornly crisp. The things keep for months, even in less than ideal storage (such as a fridge), and even after losing a great deal of moisture retain a snappy bite.
Only real downside is that the appearance isn't very flashy; they're the russet potato of modern apples.
Cosmic crisp is amazing. I also like a good Fuji, though they're not as consistently good. Jazz and Ambrosia can be good as well. It's nice that we have so many varieties to choose from now. When I was a kid it was either Red|Golden "Delicious" or Granny Smith.
This is the way... there's research already at WSU for when the Cosmic Crip runs its course and the world is ready for the next apple with the same basic characteristics.
SweeTango's #1 fault, which the site calls out, is that they do not store well. The recent bags I've taken home are notably less crisp and hardy than earlier in the fall.
That said, they'll still be absolutely delicious for another few weeks, highly recommend buying a bag. Trader Joe's usually carries.
SweeTango is a cross between Honeycrisp and Zestar. It would be interesting to know how many highly ranked apples are also crossed with a Honeycrisp on the top of the list.
I’ve gotten SweeTangos twice (in season, from Washington) and found them totally unappealing. No sourness to add interest to the flavor, not very crispy, just intense sweetness with a tiny bit of a mealy feeling.
Even if I just got duds, they fail the consistency test that honeycrisps pass.
The SweeTango I had was cloyingly, almost artificially sweet. Can’t tell if it was an unlucky pick or I just have different preferences—I like an Ambrosia.
I just bought a bag from Trader Joe's and it was absolutely disgusting. Completely mealy and flavorless. My family agrees and will probably never trust my apple picking skills again.
A childhood friend's dad is one of the people who developed the Honeycrisp and SweeTango (and Rave/First Kiss, Zestar, etc). We always had access to the latest and zaniest variants, but the Honeycrisp was just consistently very good. Yeah, sometimes you'd find an incredible fruit punch thing, but the next day you'd try another and it was gross and mealy. Honeycrisp was always reliable.
SweeTango is also excellent and reliable but it's harder to find and more expensive.
Yeah, I find the idea of using a rating site like this extremely bizarre. And after clicking on the link, that opinion is only further cemented by what seems to be a deliberate opinionated and sarcastic tone. I can only assume they want to court controversy for the sake of clicks.
For what it's worth, the only apples I buy, when they're local and in season, are McIntosh, which this site helpfully puts in the "pure shit" bin. That's just, well, wrong? Apples can be good without being bred for flavorless crispness like so many are today. And there's a difference between "soft" and "mealy", and good McIntosh apples are firmly (ha) on the soft side.
I like pink lady apples too, which this site rates "excellent", and honeycrisp are consistently acceptable - the Starbucks of apples - so it's not that they're making things up, but I think they are only rating apples along one axis and seem to have a thing for recent cultivars over classics and heirloom varieties.
> Brian Frange is a comedian and writer who has been yelling about apples for years. He started yelling about apples professionally in 2016 while working on Comedy Central’s Not Safe with Nikki Glaser while serving as co-host on the Not Safe Podcast. [...] What started as a bit revolving around his love of apples has now become a full-time job where Brian makes $700,000,000,000 per week providing apple advice for wealthy fruit enthusiasts. Brian is not in the pocket of big apple and all reviews are inarguably accurate and not corrupted by corporate influence.
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.
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.
Its worse offense is not even mentioning many very good European apples like Cox Pippin or Mingan. Is just a list of commercial apples, many of then unknown or ignored in Europe.
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.
More like the radio edit of your favorite track: was great, got diluted by assholes pushing it on the masses, is still great if you can find the original version you fell in love with.
I live in MN and my preferred apple depends on the time of year, I try to get locally grown apples whenever possible by visiting orchards, or Lunds if I can’t get to an orchard.
I like First Kiss (Rave) apples in August and early September, SweeTango in September and October, and Honeycrisp at any other time. SweeTango is my favorite, you can still get them as flavorful tennis/baseball size apples in MN vs the monstrous grapefruit sized flavorless Honeycrisp apples that seem to be everywhere these days.
There are still fantastic Honeycrisp apples available with lots of flavor, just ignore the gigantic ones.
This site has come up in conversation multiple times as if it's some sort of serious resource, but iiuc this is just one guy's opinion, and if you read the reviews, it's clear he's mostly just writing these for entertainment. Also, it's not clear how many times he's even tasted these apples and when those tastings occurred. Sometimes an apple just has a bad year!
Anyway, I'm mostly just salty that he panned the cosmic crisp. They're good this year!
To be clear (to respond to a few people panning the legitimacy of applerankings.com), I didn’t actually take the site super seriously, it just made me take more notice of the Honeycrisp and try it out.
That’s when I realized that they were very rarely mealy, something I’d been in search of for years.
But agree that the site is mostly intended to be a more humorous take on apples. (And, to be fair, it is quite funny.)
Granny Smiths are probably the most tart generally available apple, but any cooking apple in general is usually sharper. You might also like McIntosh or even Pink Lady.
You could also go down the cider apple route or even crabapples if you really want, though they often tend to be more bitter than tart.
Granny Smith is ubiquitous. It's often difficult to get a more sour apple than a Granny Smith. Pink Lady is less sour IIRC. McIntosh or Braeburn are definitely less sour.
If you're in the Midwest (especially MN, WI, Iowa, etc) you can get Haralson, which are kinda like Granny Smith but more just straight sour.
Haralson is probably my favorite. But disclaimer, I also like eating straight lemons, so ... yea. Many people will use Haralson only for baking.
I hear that in Europe they have a few types that are more sour, idk.
Weird, there’s a variety at my local farm market called Crimson Crisp that is my new favorite because it is tasty and extremely crisp. But it’s not even listed on that ranking site… maybe it’s regional?
And I’ve never heard of the Cosmic Crisp, which is showing up in a lot of comments. Again, maybe regional?
It also depends on when you get them. Here in the PNW, Honeycrisp apples in the fall are delicious because they're grown locally and not stored long. Just eat it as seasonal fruit and it lives up to its promise.
Empire has this problem. Fresh off the tree they are some of the ideal apples. After a couple weeks of storage though, they lose all that crispness and become a sad experience.
I’ve eaten many mealy honeycrisp apples. Just let it sit on your counter for 2 months then try it. Discount grocery stores are often selling many-months old apples.
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.
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.
+1 here -- Mutsu are fantastic, readily available at NYC greenmarkets in the fall and into the winter, though there are pretty large differences in flavor and texture between various orchards too. Samascot is my fav.
This is a thing I love about living in WA, I get the apples a few years before everyone else. Lets me send them to friends across the US before they hit their supermarkets.
And yes really the interesting thing is they're different and new. Tho I do really like cosmics. Especially if you dry them in a food dehydrator and then powder them into whipped cream.
Same with Western NY - proximity to Cornell’s apple research and lots of orchards is really great. If you’re an apple fanatic WA and WNY are the places to be.
I wonder what the incentives are that make mass market qualities more attractive to growers than what consumers want. Like, I can imagine a sorta-demand curve with "sweetness etc" to "uniform color etc" along the x axis and "clearing price" or something on the y axis, and I really wonder if the most efficient price is really so far to the mass market appeal side of the curve. Or to put it another way, why can't they just grow things people want?
What people want, judging by their market behavior, is reliability. A lot of the best-tasting apples are inconsistent in quality, ship or store poorly, or have a short growing season. I love eating fresh heirloom apples, but Honeycrisps are 10% great, 80% good, and 10% disappointing, which I prefer to 30% good, 30% disappointing, and 40% unavailable.
The clearing price probably actually rises with improved color and shape, and the overhead declines with greater shelf stability. It’s not until years later that consumers slowly realize the texture and taste have gone downhill (as result of these developments) that clearing price begins to decline. So the market has a lag in response; it resembles a high value brand being sucked dry.
What people want when you sit them down and have them try apples side by side is different from what they want when they are in a supermarket, tired from working all day, and starring out at a sea of apples and not quite remembering which one it was they liked.
Enshitification. I’ve been buying honeycrisp for a while and noticed more mushiness and flat flavor recently but I didn’t realize there was a whole apple-buying meta to keep up with if you don’t want to buy garbage fruit.
Edit: All the honeycrisp in my area right now are oversized. I’m guessing because of a supplier change due to the season change?
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.
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.
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.
Same here, Envy is my main apple (I typically eat 2 apples a day, one each for morning and afternoon snack). ~80% of the time Envy apples blow my socks off, Maybe 2% of the time they're just ok. I'll get a SweeTango or Cosmic Crisp if Envy are not available, but I've just never had one that I thought was better than Envy.
I went through a big Honeycrisp phase and really enjoy them, but I have thin enamel on my teeth and frequent eating of uncooked Honeycrisp leads me to a lot of tooth pain, they're just a little too tart. They are my go-to baking apple though.
From the sound of it, they lowered our standards for the Honeycrisp and made way for an inferior but more robust apple that’s better than the lowered standards. While it’s likely they did this unintentionally it seems like the Cosmic Crisp is not as well-liked as the early Honeycrisp.
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.
My own experience is that Honeycrisp is the most consistently sweet and crisp apple you can buy (contrary to the claims made in TFA -- maybe it's a regional thing?). Cosmic Crisp is decent but I'm not a fan of the flavor.
It's likely that the best apple will be whatever of the "honeycrisp-like" varieties you can acquire on with the shortest time between tree and your mouth.
Meh. Cosmic crisp is just hyped up marketing. It was obvious in how heavily they advertised. It’s not actually better. Honey crisp remains the sweetest and tastiest.
But they are consistent and reliable, for now. I know if I go to the store and I've got the option of 6 different types of apples (I live in WA, we've got apple choices...) I know cosmic crips (grown barely an hour drive from where I live) will be consistent in texture and flavor.
That must be on media I don’t use, as I didn’t even know they advertised. I independently settled on cosmic crisp (and the nearly identical crimson crisp) as my standard.
I never did like honeycrisp all that much, though. It’s a little too sweet and something about the flavor is just a little bit wrong. It’s hard to describe but it’s like they tried a little too hard to make the ideal apple. It’s alright and I’d be happy to eat one but I don’t buy them.
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.
> I find [Pink Lady to be] 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.
I’m not an apple expert, but I’m pretty sure that a lot of “supermarket varieties” like Pink Lady have higher cellulose which helps them withstand relatively rough handling. (For those who don’t know: Apples are extremely easy to bruise, you should handle them carefully and never ever press on them to test for ripeness!)
Please tell me that people don't actually do this. If you have seen it, let me know and I'll reach out to some of the major grocers to maybe add some signage in their produce section about evaluating apple ripeness.
I will, maybe, spin the apple in my hand lightly to determine if there's some notable damage, but I'd never press into the flesh and dent it on purpose. Maybe that's what you're seen people do?
Then again, in our zero consequences society, I wouldn't be surprised if people took the IDGAF attitude about damaging produce they don't intend on purchasing.
I wonder if your "taste" for an apple is just so completely drowned out by your experience and exposure to the apple industry. Like, if I had the opportunity to taste every apple variety all the time, maybe the Honeycrisp starts to trend towards crispy water (amusing analogy by the way).
But for the average consumer, maybe a strong tasting apple is a put off. I personally choose and eat Honeycrisp consistently every time and I'm completely 100% satisfied with every apple I've had of it. There have been some better than others, of course, but still satisfied with the quality, taste and crispness regardless.
I have no doubt that maybe Honeycrisp just has such a mass appeal that apple experts might not actually prefer its taste. Maybe I'm just a "boring" white bread kind of apple consumer. I'm fine with this, honestly, because Honeycrisps make me happy. And when they are on sale for $1 / pound, they make me even happier.
It's possibly like wine this way too, where the very best wines are those that only the experts can really taste and appreciate. For me, the differences between varieties of wine is completely lost.
I can tell you there is one that for me is head-and-shoulders above the rest: Wickson Crab.
+1 to Wickson Crab. It's my favorite apple as well. I grew them in California, but my tree here in Vermont isn't bearing yet, so I'm not sure they'll be the same.
Dmitri, where are you growing them? And who is selling them at Farmer's Markets in California? I worked a lot of markets in the Bay Area, and I don't remember ever seeing them for sale (although that was 10 years ago).
> this article doesn't actually explain why (or even if) Honeycrisp has gotten worse
Is no mystery at all what is happening here.
One of the things that I loved from plant physiology is how futuristic it is. Bordering black magic sometimes. For example. Do you knew that potions of eternal youth exist... for apples?.
You just need to apply some commercial product and this apple will kept brilliant skin, no wrinkles, and bright color for weeks. Fantastic, right? The sellers and the supermarkets will love that.
The only problem is that it cost sugar to keep it alive in this state of white-snow suspended animation. As long as there is sugar remaining it works. After a while you have a good-looking apple with a disappointing bland watery taste.
This is half of the explanation that the writer was looking for. The other half is a camera storage time too extended.
This is interesting. Could you provide any information about this commercial product? As far as I understand, the most sophisticated treatment happening is low oxygen storage. But neither of these things explain why apples straight off the tree are also bland.
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.
Readit News
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))
I actually live in MN so am spoiled by the easy access to quality varieties. Honeycrisp are so "common" here (grown here) that I definitely avoid WA grown stock that seeps into grocery stores more quickly than ever.
I currently have 4 apple trees on the property but have only lived with apple trees for about the last 4 years now. I can't even imagine getting the conditions for a Honeycrisp tree right given the trees I have seem very temperamental. Last year (summer of '23) was a horrible year for our trees due to the summer long drought. Some of my trees are in irrigation zones so they did get decent water, but still failed to yield much.
This year was bonkers. I clocked 34" of rain in my backyard and all 4 trees had the highest yield so far. While these varieties aren't as delicious as a freshly picked, ripe Honeycrisp, they're still 1000x better than any mealy, soft apple from the store that was picked 6+ months ago. The other thing with Honeycrisp is that all of the local orchards have netting protecting all the Honeycrisp because, since the skin is so thin, they're highly susceptible to hail damage. They just seem like too much work given I can buy them grown here.
Curious how long it will be before the automation is perfected? Is this a normal cycle with a new breed of apple?
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/
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33639206
I’m fully aligned I eat apples for the texture above all else, with flavor being important but nothing close to how much crunch eat bite has.
https://applerankings.com/ludacrisp-apple-review/
Only real downside is that the appearance isn't very flashy; they're the russet potato of modern apples.
You may enjoy the Fuyu Persimmon also. Eaten with firm skin is definitely crunchy. The flavor is moderately sweet.
https://applerankings.com/sweetango-apple-review/
SweeTango's #1 fault, which the site calls out, is that they do not store well. The recent bags I've taken home are notably less crisp and hardy than earlier in the fall.
That said, they'll still be absolutely delicious for another few weeks, highly recommend buying a bag. Trader Joe's usually carries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SweeTango
Even if I just got duds, they fail the consistency test that honeycrisps pass.
A childhood friend's dad is one of the people who developed the Honeycrisp and SweeTango (and Rave/First Kiss, Zestar, etc). We always had access to the latest and zaniest variants, but the Honeycrisp was just consistently very good. Yeah, sometimes you'd find an incredible fruit punch thing, but the next day you'd try another and it was gross and mealy. Honeycrisp was always reliable.
SweeTango is also excellent and reliable but it's harder to find and more expensive.
Deleted Comment
At the same time, it is worth noting that not everybody likes crisp apples, so the ranking in that website is... daringly interpretive.
For what it's worth, the only apples I buy, when they're local and in season, are McIntosh, which this site helpfully puts in the "pure shit" bin. That's just, well, wrong? Apples can be good without being bred for flavorless crispness like so many are today. And there's a difference between "soft" and "mealy", and good McIntosh apples are firmly (ha) on the soft side.
I like pink lady apples too, which this site rates "excellent", and honeycrisp are consistently acceptable - the Starbucks of apples - so it's not that they're making things up, but I think they are only rating apples along one axis and seem to have a thing for recent cultivars over classics and heirloom varieties.
> Brian Frange is a comedian and writer who has been yelling about apples for years. He started yelling about apples professionally in 2016 while working on Comedy Central’s Not Safe with Nikki Glaser while serving as co-host on the Not Safe Podcast. [...] What started as a bit revolving around his love of apples has now become a full-time job where Brian makes $700,000,000,000 per week providing apple advice for wealthy fruit enthusiasts. Brian is not in the pocket of big apple and all reviews are inarguably accurate and not corrupted by corporate influence.
https://applerankings.com/about/
It's all in good fun. Obviously if you prefer Red Delicious you're free to [strikethrough]have terrible taste[/strikethrough] disagree.
I wouldn't put much trust in it, at least if you are in Europe.
I like First Kiss (Rave) apples in August and early September, SweeTango in September and October, and Honeycrisp at any other time. SweeTango is my favorite, you can still get them as flavorful tennis/baseball size apples in MN vs the monstrous grapefruit sized flavorless Honeycrisp apples that seem to be everywhere these days.
There are still fantastic Honeycrisp apples available with lots of flavor, just ignore the gigantic ones.
Anyway, I'm mostly just salty that he panned the cosmic crisp. They're good this year!
That’s when I realized that they were very rarely mealy, something I’d been in search of for years.
But agree that the site is mostly intended to be a more humorous take on apples. (And, to be fair, it is quite funny.)
I really like granny smith apples for the sour flavor profile, but most review websites rate it poorly.
Pink lady's texture is not great and I find it too sweet.
You could also go down the cider apple route or even crabapples if you really want, though they often tend to be more bitter than tart.
If you're in the Midwest (especially MN, WI, Iowa, etc) you can get Haralson, which are kinda like Granny Smith but more just straight sour.
Haralson is probably my favorite. But disclaimer, I also like eating straight lemons, so ... yea. Many people will use Haralson only for baking.
I hear that in Europe they have a few types that are more sour, idk.
And a lot of cider apples
And I’ve never heard of the Cosmic Crisp, which is showing up in a lot of comments. Again, maybe regional?
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutsu_(apple)
[1] https://www.scottfarmvermont.com/westfield-seeknofurther
It's not as good as a Bramley. Does anyone in the US grow those commercially? Why not?
And yes really the interesting thing is they're different and new. Tho I do really like cosmics. Especially if you dry them in a food dehydrator and then powder them into whipped cream.
Same deal with cherries.
Edit: All the honeycrisp in my area right now are oversized. I’m guessing because of a supplier change due to the season change?
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.
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.
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
Maybe it was a similar issue - off-season and stored too long, but I haven't seen any around here in years (midwest).
I encourage everyone to check out 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/
Their top ranked apple is the SweeTango, and I agree with their assessment: https://applerankings.com/sweetango-apple-review/
Full ranking list: https://applerankings.com/pick-an-apple/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp
Crisp and sweet.
I went through a big Honeycrisp phase and really enjoy them, but I have thin enamel on my teeth and frequent eating of uncooked Honeycrisp leads me to a lot of tooth pain, they're just a little too tart. They are my go-to baking apple though.
the magic of honeycrisp is that they're always about the same
https://www.opb.org/article/2024/08/24/wa-64-apple-naming-ws...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp
https://treefruit.wsu.edu/web-article/apple-breeding-program...
They also have the amazing attribute of browning very slowly - you can cut one and leave it out all day it will hardly change color.
So it's enterprise-ready. But is it webscale?
I never did like honeycrisp all that much, though. It’s a little too sweet and something about the flavor is just a little bit wrong. It’s hard to describe but it’s like they tried a little too hard to make the ideal apple. It’s alright and I’d be happy to eat one but I don’t buy them.
Dead Comment
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.
I’m not an apple expert, but I’m pretty sure that a lot of “supermarket varieties” like Pink Lady have higher cellulose which helps them withstand relatively rough handling. (For those who don’t know: Apples are extremely easy to bruise, you should handle them carefully and never ever press on them to test for ripeness!)
Please tell me that people don't actually do this. If you have seen it, let me know and I'll reach out to some of the major grocers to maybe add some signage in their produce section about evaluating apple ripeness.
I will, maybe, spin the apple in my hand lightly to determine if there's some notable damage, but I'd never press into the flesh and dent it on purpose. Maybe that's what you're seen people do?
Then again, in our zero consequences society, I wouldn't be surprised if people took the IDGAF attitude about damaging produce they don't intend on purchasing.
But for the average consumer, maybe a strong tasting apple is a put off. I personally choose and eat Honeycrisp consistently every time and I'm completely 100% satisfied with every apple I've had of it. There have been some better than others, of course, but still satisfied with the quality, taste and crispness regardless.
I have no doubt that maybe Honeycrisp just has such a mass appeal that apple experts might not actually prefer its taste. Maybe I'm just a "boring" white bread kind of apple consumer. I'm fine with this, honestly, because Honeycrisps make me happy. And when they are on sale for $1 / pound, they make me even happier.
It's possibly like wine this way too, where the very best wines are those that only the experts can really taste and appreciate. For me, the differences between varieties of wine is completely lost.
+1 to Wickson Crab. It's my favorite apple as well. I grew them in California, but my tree here in Vermont isn't bearing yet, so I'm not sure they'll be the same.
Dmitri, where are you growing them? And who is selling them at Farmer's Markets in California? I worked a lot of markets in the Bay Area, and I don't remember ever seeing them for sale (although that was 10 years ago).
Is no mystery at all what is happening here.
One of the things that I loved from plant physiology is how futuristic it is. Bordering black magic sometimes. For example. Do you knew that potions of eternal youth exist... for apples?.
You just need to apply some commercial product and this apple will kept brilliant skin, no wrinkles, and bright color for weeks. Fantastic, right? The sellers and the supermarkets will love that.
The only problem is that it cost sugar to keep it alive in this state of white-snow suspended animation. As long as there is sugar remaining it works. After a while you have a good-looking apple with a disappointing bland watery taste.
This is half of the explanation that the writer was looking for. The other half is a camera storage time too extended.
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.