Article for general interest. It was published a week ago.
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Maine and most of the northeast is supposed to be ideal honeycrisp growing areas yet I’ve never tasted a really good one. most of the ones here in the store come from all over new england and some from Maine. none impressed me. the only orchard within 60 mi. had some. i bought half a peck at the beginning of their ripening season then 2 weeks later, in the later part . the later was a little better but all the other kinds i bought we far superior to them. im glad when they came on the scene i didnt buy a tree. more interested i growing long keeping apples to keep me supplied until at least next spring. had some excellent empires 2 weeks ago that were so good i bought 2 more pecks for $1.49 lb. read they keep a long time. im going to graft a few branches of it next spring.
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I agree. Never been impressed with a single honey crisp apple I ever ate.
The same thing appears to be happening to cosmic crisp. The first season I tried it, it was expensive, hard to find, but truly outstanding.
Nowadays it’s easy to find, but lacks flavor and is now like every other mediocre store apple.
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Even in the early days I was never a fan. Part of that’s because I’m so cheap, but the fact is I thought they were juicy and sweet and flavorless.
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I thought they were good at first because of the magic crunch. From my customers I sense that crispness is more or less the most desirable trait. People who don’t like tart, won’t choose a tart apple, regardless how crisp.
But all other things equal, crisp is sort of king. I always felt Honeycrisp didn’t have a great flavor, but had an excellent mouth feel.
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Texture is not a big thing for me. I like different flavors. Berries. Vanilla. A strong honey taste. Fruity. Sweet and tangy. I like juicy apples though.
One of our grand daughters loves sour apples.
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Most of my favorite apples - the cox varieties like Rubinette or the russet kinds like Hudson’s Golden Gem don’t have that impressive crispness.
But I’m a sugar junkie and will take a brix 25+ apple with not so great texture over a brix 10 apple with incredible texture.
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We tend to like two types, eating and baking:
For eating this year’s favorites are Red Gravenstein, King of Pippins and Tomkins King
For baking it’s still Cortland and May always be.
I just picked up more scions of King of Pippins and will overdraft a red delicious tree with it.
We overgrafted our semi dwarf Honeycrisp with Red Gravenstein and several others and not looking back!
Dennis
Kent, wa
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I was a fan of Honeycrisp. The beginning start was good, but too pricey. Never purchase more than 2 apples. It was a good blend of sweet and tart. The skin was delicate and the crispiness stood out. Only when the price came down, that I purchase more. Then, I notice the inconsistency of the apple. No taste, bitter taste, sour taste. Some apple skin was not as delicate and taken the magic out of the apple. Now, I pass them over.
I planted some seeds from Honeycrisp 2 years ago. They are slow to grow. They struggle in the heat. At least they are still alive.
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Ive never been a fan of Honeycrisp. Our local WSU research station here in western Washington rejected it back when it was still just a test number. This due to the insipid flavor, storage problems and being just plain grower unfriendly. But it was an apple that came along at exactly the right time, just as the apple industry was collapsing due mostly to huge mismanagement of the big apple machine in eastern Washington. Customers could now count on always finding a crisp Honeycrisp in the grocery store. So what if it didnt have any flavor… still better than anything prior.
The only problem is, like most all good apple varieties, its actually hard to find a growing region in eastern WA now is good for growing apples. Honeycrisp is too delicate of an apple for most of the major averages its planted in. Its just too hot, too intense of sun exposure.
Same is true for Cosmic Crisp. Now MI has the Honeycrisp x Liberty cross, Triumph. Personally i think that should excell over CC. Lyberty is a far superior McIntosh cross to use than the Enterprise.
So in my eyes the driver that i see ruining an apple like Honeycrisp, or any variety from a great growing region like MI, is location.
Second would be breeding.
The breeders are doing the same thing with Honeycrisp as they have done with EVERY popular variety. Try and make it redder. Im not anti science in the least in fact my college education is in science. However it seems that some of these plant breeders and the companies that sponsor them are very narrow minded and never seem to remember what overbreeding has done in the past… red delicious.
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The HC apple tastes better grown here in Minnesota. I have family members that will not buy HC grown in Washington.
Part of the issue with HC from Washington is that those farmers way over crop their apples. Drive along their orchard rows and it’ll be obvious they aren’t thinning enough. Paid by the ton not by the taste.
I’m told by someone at the U of Minn breeding program that you have to watch when you buy cosmic crisp. They apparently don’t release the new crop until 12/01 so you buy cosmic crisp in november and those apples are 11 months old. I’ve been off them but I’m going to try them again in January. Certainly they were much better when I’ve bought them at a farmer’s market in Washington.
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My first thought before reading the story was climate and storage. Great article. Thank you!
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The first Honeycrisp apple i had was a big beautiful apple and tasted exactly like the name implied,sweet like honey,very crisp,slightly aromatic.
Every Honeycrisp apple after that fell short of even being semi good.
I don’t know what happened or if my mind was playing tricks on me.
It was just so bizarre to never find another Honeycrisp close to that taste profile and I tried several from tree ripened specimens at peek ripeness.
I hope this doesn’t happen to the new Cosmic Crisp because the first few were big,crunchy,delicious apples fitting of a 10 out of 10 in all my apple requirerments.
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I think that it depends on where the tree is growing, most Honeycrisp apples now are tiny compared to the ones I first tried. Like why are the usually smaller all of a sudden, they are climate picky. If they are not grown where they prefer growing, or if the climate they are growing in changes, then they are not worth buying. I used to use Honeycrisp in every apple pie I made, then one day when I was looking for Honeycrisp apples to make such a pie, I realized that they were tiny everywhere that I looked, and they seemed lower quality than before as well, and this was in the state of Vermont. As anyone who knows New England, it’s pretty easy to find decent apples in New England, especially during apple season which is was. Luckily I found one place that had the better Honeycrisp apples, and I was able to make the pie.
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My local independent grocery store is selling Eastern grown Honeycrisp in 3 pounds bags for $1.98. Don’t know how a grower or a packer can make any money at wholesale marketing them at a price that allows stores to sell that cheap.
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Great read, So basically it’s all cultural and mass production issues, and not genetic drift of the cultivar?
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I think you all are being too harsh on Honey Crisp and WA and in my opinion it boils down to how much of a texture person you are. It is my favorite commercially available apple and if I have to buy at a grocery store, I usually get those and have an acceptable apple experience. Take it with a grain of salt because I’ve never had a MN-grown Honey but I did have good ones in WA that I liked and also had very good reviews from people visiting us from random places all over. I get them from farmers’ market and I usually have to browse around, not every Honey at the market is good.
That being said, I get it, it doesn’t get a lot of points in the flavor and complexity department and when I shop for apples they usually serve as a reliable apple to fallback too. Luckily, since WA is an apple place, at least one or two farmers bring some obscure varieties to the market that I go with over Honey. Today I got Fireside apple that even my picky kid loves. Although I am, like, 30% sure he mislabeled them because they don’t looks like the Fireside apples google is showing me.
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Harsh on HC? I already stopped eating them period. That’s as harsh as it’s going get. Envy is a better apple. They were on sale for 50 cent a LB. I purchased 17 LB worth. Fuji and Modi apple is the to go apple for me.
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You aren’t wrong, LOL.
I’m in Minnesota and there are basically no commercial apple orchards so every apple in the store is from WA. Every apple.
What do you buy? HC. It’s the best choice unless you GROW YOUR OWN!!!
I will say that last year we started getting WildTwist apples at Costco which are from the east coast I’m told. Those are the best available commercial apple.
The texture of HC from WA is just fine - the flavor and tartness is not.
Oh my gosh. We have a honey crisp apple tree here in Taos, New Mexico and the apples are incredible. Sweet, crisp and juicy. Heavenly. We had a bumper crop and people were so excited when I brought them a bag, because they remembered them from last year. The season when they are so great is short though. Too early and they are not sweet. And they do not keep that incredible taste and texture very long in the frig. It is best to use or give away the crop as fast as you can, once they get to just the right ripeness… I take what we cannot use or give to the neighbors to the food pantry for the weekly food distribution.
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