Wilsons is strong - closer to that phenolic wild taste, which makes sense since it’s an older cultivar. I’ve learned that if you’re just scooping out the seed sack, that’s not a good way to judge flavor. They all taste lighter to me if you’re just sucking out the seed. The real meat is where you can judge flavor better.
I double blinded myself for tasting, scooped everything into bowls, numbers on bottom of bowls and had a master list before I ten-(or whatever number) bowl monte shuffled. Tasted all, wrote notes and then had to go to master list to see what I liked.
Actually I wouldn’t consider any of them bad per say. I consider some of them closer to wild tasting - either phenolic strong or perhaps a bitter maybe astringent aftertaste. Some gritty like Rappahannock. The most off-putting trait to me isn’t initial flavor (some more melony, some more bananay, some more fruity like punch), it’s actually aftertaste or texture. There’s some that develop this gritty sandy part of the aftertaste. And one of the favorite ones I liked was the suspected Shenandoah x Allegeny cross, because it was really airy, like almost a foamed quality to the texture with a clean finish, no aftertaste.
I wanted to judge the taste from a single location because I wanted to rule out location as a variable. Also since I am growing here, I want to know what tastes good here.
There are some pawpaws like Sweet Alice that taste amazing in the south but quite bland or not up to par north of mason dixon line. Shenandoah (to me at least) tastes ever so slightly different here than it does from my friend in Ohio.
I’ve been busy lately, I gave away plenty of paw paw. Gave away like 7 pounds and still had 10-12 pounds for myself. Lots to process, and more varieties are on their away probably in a week or two.
People here would probably cry if they saw the amount of slightly blacked pawpaw that are being tossed by either myself or my friend (the one growing all these) cause they are “too ripe.” His compost pile is quite comical too. You’re looking at it thinking it’s creeping periwinkle that has established as ground cover but it’s all paw paw seedlings that have sprouted!