Scott,
@HighandDry posted his reviews of the following apples on the Thinning Fruit, Easier Said Than Done thread. Instead of linking the whole thread, I just copied his reviews here so people don’t have to read through the thread.
I’d like to thank @HighandDry/Neil for his reviews. Here it is.
"While I wouldn’t want to talk you out of KOR, which fruited for me for the first time last year and was very good, if you’re looking for flavor closer to COP, Kidd’s probably isn’t what you’re looking for. It’s reputed to be on the sweeter side, and that was definitely my observation. Rubinette, which also fruited for the first time for me last year, was also quite sweet, but had a little more acid. Rather than typing wall-of-text paragraph, I’ll break down the Cox offspring that have fruited for me and my brief impressions of each.
Ellison’s Orange: Produced (past tense, as I finished grafting over the tree this spring after slowly eliminating limbs over the past four seasons) the occasional tasty, though slightly soft apple. Most of the time the apples were sweet and mushy, regardless of how early I picked them, with only a hint of their potential flavor showing up. It’s simply too hot here for this apple. I suspect the same will be true for your area.
Holstein: Such promising flavor in early drops (this tree drops tons of apples every year), but repeatedly failed to produce fully ripe and delicious apples. It also sunburns predictably in my intense summer sun. Still, that promise of a terrific apple kept me from grafting over the tree. It suddenly died this spring just as flower buds were swelling. I have photos and may post them with questions, but I think it might have been delayed scion-rootstock incompatibility. I kept some scions while dormant pruning and will graft a lim somewhere, because that promise of deliciousness… Still, I cannot recommend this for you either.
Fryburg: Nice apple, but much more like Golden Delicious than Cox. It would likely perform for you, as it produces nice apples for me most years and also produces for Scott up in MD, which is much closer to your climate than mine is.
Karmijn de Sonneville: Similar to Holstein in all respects. Drops a ton of fruit every year; sunburns worse than Holstein; rarely displays the flavor it promises; but when it does, Bang! I’ll spray Surround this year and see how that affects things. If it doesn’t help, I’ll topwork the tree in spite of the dynamite flavor I’ve had from a couple of apples (across four or five years of fruiting…how’s that for patience?). Not recommended for you at all.
Kidd’s Orange Red: first fruiting last year on a young but nicely growing tree. I let this tree carry too many apples last year and was paid back with exactly two fruit buds this spring, neither of which will carry fruit. Thin well, especially young trees. The apples are very sweet, 27-28 brix after almost two months in storage. Not my highest measurements last season, but close. They had some acid, but I’d have liked more. I love a highly flavored, high acid apple best—see Suntan below. Folks who don’t like their eyes to cross when eating an apple will love KOR, though at this brix, maybe only super sweet toothers will really love it.
Rubinette: first fruiting on a struggling tree last year, about five apples. I don’t recall them being appreciably different than KOR and my notes aren’t all that helpful with any nuance. They were super sweet with mild acid. I liked them, but hope for more acid in future years.
Suntan: fruited for the first time for me last year. Every apple (15-20) was dynamite, as in the best apples I’ve ever eaten. Explosive Cox flavor, high acid/high sugar. And it keeps too. I ate my last specimen on January 17, three months after harvest, and it remained excellent, if a little lower on acid and less crisp than at harvest (which was at full ripeness on Oct 15 for me—had I harvested two or three weeks earlier, I bet it would keep longer). I can’t speak for this apple’s consistency across years or how it performs in hot and humid conditions, but it laughed off my summer heat. I grafted another tree this spring.
Tydemann’s Late Orange: Almost indistinguishable from Esopus Spitz in my orchard, except it’s not close to as productive. I suppose it could be that there was a mix up somewhere and I’m not actually growing TLO, but the apple looks right and more or less matches its description and I think I got it from the Geneva repository, so it’s likely the real deal. I’ll probably graft over the one large scaffold I have of it because Spitz performs so much better for me.
Herefordshire Russet: Produced its first apples for me last year. Excellent in all respects except for size, but I allowed the mult-grafted tree it’s on, the previously mentioned Ellison’s Orange, to overbear and most of the apples of all three varieties on it were smallish. English russets typically don’t like my dry heat, but HR shrugged it off easily. It’s not as sharp as Suntan (few apples are, in my experience) but it’s definitely got an acid punch to go along with the typical russet sweets. It’s juicy for a russet, though compared to non-russets it’s on the drier side, it’s flavor is complex with plenty of aromatics to go with the acid/sweet and it keeps at least 2.5 months. As with Suntan, I liked it enough to graft new tree this year and topworked what remained of Ellison’s O to this variety. It’s a big winner."
Neil is in the high elevation desert of Neveda. His Suntan can handle the heat but he does not have the humid you do. I grafted Suntan this year on B 9. It grows well so far.