Best tasting apples

My husband just had a red delicious from the store, he said it’s not too bad, it’s been a long time since I had one, maybe 40 years or more. He said the skin is a bit tart, is that your experience too.

I did a quick search, and it appears it is a different variety. Red Delicious itself has so many different sports, that can be considerably different for those with refined taste buds.

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“Not too bad” is very different from my experience today :blush:, they were the best apples I ate in years! The skin was not tart at all. Even my wife and daughter who normally don’t care for RD, thought they were excellent.

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I have red chief and was thinking if it’s worth to try another one like king roat or redcap… i think it’s not worth it…

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Yeah, in my climate Red Delicious is never better than an average apple, and it’s average on its best years when there hasn’t been much rain. I manage plenty of very old RD on seedling rootstocks so I assume they are often Hawkeye. However, for some palates, low acid is key and if Fuji is a favorite it may mean low acid is right and RD as well. Gala is in similar class, and I like it better than RD here, for sure. Fuji also.

Some of the newest strains of RD can be terrible with thick cardboard, but deep red skin. The great color is kind of like false advertising.

I guess Yellow Delicious is about my fav common old fashioned apple but it is unusually variable, even same strain on different parts of my property where it can run from average to excellent. Yes, the newest strains that are highly resistant to russet seem not to get the deep rich flavor of a proper YD. I think that the farther YD gets from russet the blander it becomes. It may have Golden Russet in its genes.

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Red Chief is a sport of Red Delicious…stripes rather than solid red. I have a graft of it. I’ve heard there’s an apple in Chile by name of Red Chief, but I have no info on that.

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Rereading my last comment, it seems pretty pompous because besides not emphasizing that varieties behave very differently in different environments I failed to mention that taste is totally subjective and no one is an expert. I shouldn’t have acted like I know why other people like RD or any other apple, that’s for them to say.

I could have just edited the comment but I think this communication is better with the contrast. Everyone gets to pick whatever apple they like and isn’t it great that there are so many different varieties that we should be able to find one just right for our own tastes, or several or all of them- whatever.

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My red delicious this year were pretty good. Flavor was more pronounced and complex than last year. They are always beautiful and so far the largest apple on my orchard. I’m hoping coras grand greening, Wolf River, and jumbo will be even bigger. Wish the skin wasn’t quite so tough. I love the prominent five ribs, even when quite immature.

I keep going back to the descriptions in Apples of Uncommon Character–love the writing style and so true!

“Golden Delicious sets the standard for feminine appleness, the blond, curvaceous, soft-shouldered distaff to Red Delicious’s angular fire-truck masculinity”

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My trees this year produced some fruit for the first time. The ones I really liked are:
Calville Blanc d’ Hiver, Ashmead’s Kernel, and Spitzenburg. These taste amazing.

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Got my first Opal of this season from big chain grocery. They also had Lucy Glo, but mislabeled as “Lucy Gold”.

This first Opal was completely seedless. Apparently parthenocarpy can be induced with application of common chemicals. I wonder if that’s what happened here?:

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I’m looking to put in a bunch of trees this coming spring. I’ve got an unknown Gala or Fuji maybe that’s in bad shape and needs to come out (it’s a bird feeder holder, basically) and a dwarf Pink Lady that I picked up because it was like $20 and I knew even less about apples than I do now. I’m in zone 7a a few minutes west of Philly. I’m pretty flexible in what I like as long as it isn’t just straight sour and probably underripe. My parents are in their 70s and like sweet apples for fresh eating (some combination of old people taste buds thinking everything is sour and/or liking sweet, ripe apples from the store when they used to show up at the store that way) and my mom likes to make some pies, but isn’t overly picky as long as they don’t turn into sauce when baked.

I’ve been mostly looking at disease resistant cultivars and trying to find early, mid and late season ones that are on the sweeter side either right off the tree or after some time in the fridge. There seems to be not much for early and mid season that meet those criteria, so I’ve come up with a couple later season ones that spread the harvest out at least a little bit. Here’s what I’ve come up with, I’m hoping people with experience growing them can share a little insight. (i.e. like “No, fireblight will immediately kill that if you trying growing it” or “It’s super tart even after it’s turned into apple meal.”)
Redfree
SnowSweet
GoldRush
Hudson’s Golden Gem
Novaspy
and Sundance.

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:joy::relaxed::older_adult:

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Gold Rush is quite tart and there is not enough season where you are for it to build enough sweetness to balance the acid. Additionally, its flesh is very dense, and can be hard for an old person to bite into.

Fuji is a great sweet apple, very good keeper and can be picked late October/ early November. Red Delicious when picked late October will be quite sweet and has a very good flavor. Same for Golden Delicious. I have not tried Kidds Orange Red myself (I have a 2 year old tree), but is said to be a “better Gala” and ripens in September.

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We had our first outbreak of fireblight last year, and both Hudson’s Golden Gem and Gold Rush came through fine. We don’t grow the others you list.

Hudson’s for flavor always finishes high in our taste tests. Rich and sweet.

Our Gold Rush has yet to bear fruit, but several nearby orchards grow it, and the Finger Lakes is a full hardiness zone lower than Philadelphia, so I think it should do fine for you. The extreme sweet-tart combination can be a treat, but it may not please someone who prefers the bland sweet of Gala and most post-Gala apple varieties.

Heirloom varieties with an historic Philadelphia connection, including some now obscure and difficult to obtain, include:
Doctor (of Germantown)
Rambo
Smokehouse
Jefferis

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I planted some seeds of Opal 18 months ago…none of them are alive today. Of the 40 to 50% that came up, all had mildew and otherwise were not vigorous. So, they do have seeds, but maybe you found a new thing there.

I’ve yet to eat any of those you suggest. Some of the “PRI” apples, some of the Limbertwigs, even Arkansas Black, might fill in most of your ‘requirements’.

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Have you read Scott’s latest apple evaluation?

Scott's Apple Experiences Through 2022.

He is in 6b/7a in MD, your next door neighbor.

I am in 6a MA. I also like sweet apples and balanced sweet/tart apples but not sour or sour-leaning apples.

My number one apple (for now) is Crunch A Bunch. It is balanced with lighter texture than Gold Rush. I have a feeling that your parents may prefer it to a dense Gold Rush.

My favorite sweet apples is Orin, a large Japanese, light, crisp and sweet apple. Fuji and Gala are also sweet apples. Scott said Fuji is disease resistant.

Crunch A Bunch and Orin are trouble-free for me. I don’t know any of your choices except for Gold Rush.

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We old people bought some GoldRush in West Virginia that were superb. I grow Snowsweet-a great apple, and Redfree-a rather blah to average apple.

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SnowSweet does well here zone 7 MD, bagged. Good sweet apple, good consistency, on the small side for me. Goldrush, one great apple to eat, is very susceptible to cedar apple rust and the fairly new leaf blotch disease- both can defoliate GR. List of no-spray apples getting smaller and smaller. Yates remains on that list per many reports.

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Got a hold of a bunch of Envy at Whole Foods the other day. Boy are they delicious! Wish I could successfully grow these in my neck of the woods! Solid 9.5/10 apples!

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