Hello, I recently got to know this fruit. I bought one last year in a store and was not the best. But it think it has some potential. Surely the store bought fruit was not picked at the right moment so I want to try out the best possible version of this fruit.
I wanted to buy 1 between Hosui and Olympic
And I was looking for information over the Benita variety (which is a cross between regular pear and the Asian one) and the red fleshed nashi varieties.
Thank you very much!
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Kosui and Nijisseki are the best. I have them and no problems or any pests. Very tasty.
Cheers
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Rudolf,
Being in Italy, you may want to find out locally who grow them in your area and what varieties local growers recommend.
By the way, I have both Olympic aka Korean Giant and Hosui. In my New England, USA location, KG wins, bigger, tastier and cold hardy.
I have the classic Mediterranean climate. Cold winters , hot summers , few rains in summer / winter . Soils is a bit chalky and has a bit of clay. Sun would be around 6-7 hours a day (direct). I think KG is really interesting but there is only 1 nursery in Europe that sells it and I am afraid it might be a scam.
I’m gonna also look up for the kosui!
Agree you should avoid buying from a questionable nursery as it could take you 3-4 years to realize you get the wrong variety.
I have 20th Century (Nijisseki), Hosui and Kosui, too. 20th C is yellow, thinned-skin pear while Hosui and Kosui are russeted pears.
20th C tends to set tons of fruit so thinning is needed. Fruit is small and tastes mildly sweet. (Where I am). Kosui and Hosui taste similar to me. Both are fine.
If you want yellow skin pear, I would go for Shinseiki as it is a bit bigger and sweeter than 20th C.
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I wanted one that has the “classic” Nashi look such as hosui . I’m actually starting to think about getting the hosui because it seems way too weird to me that only one nursery sells the KG
In the USA, California grows a lot of nashi which are shipped across the country. The weather there ought to be similar to yours. Varieties that I see coming out of California are Shinko, Hosui, and Shin Li. Perhaps these would do well at your location given the similar climate.
I can say that Hosui, Kosui, and Akizuki were very popular varieties in Japan when I visited. The ones I sampled were delicious. Niitaka was also for sale everywhere in Tokyo, but the taste wasn’t to my liking. I have a feeling that its selling point was that it can reach nearly 2 pounds in size.
EDIT: Korean Giant is a very good quality pear. Maybe it’s just not very well known where you live. The texture is denser than other Asian pears I’ve tasted which is nice for diversity.
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