Went to eat a pink lady apple this afternoon and after a bite or two couldn’t eat any more. It had some sort of off putting bitter taste to it, almost like a chemical. That’s the best I can describe it…Sad because this is one of my favorite apples. The apple was well washed and I don’t think it was the skin. I’d noticed recently other pink lady apples I’ve eaten have tasted this way in certain parts of the apple but not throughout like this one. Has anyone else experienced this? If so any idea what it could be? The apple was the perfect texture, but the taste was awful.
Have been experiencing that lately too not just pink lady. My guess is a cold storage chemical taste cause like you it’s crisp and not mealy but a definite taste and yes couldn’t finish the last one.
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wasn’t aware that they used a chemical in cold storage. I mentioned it to my wife and she had noticed it as well. when I said it was strange that it was just the pink ladys she said it seems more like the pink ladys because they’re about 75% of the apples we eat.
I know exactly what you are talking about. I have had some really strange tasting Pink Ladies and also Evelinas. You are looking forward to the taste, take bite and it’s something awful!
Must be the cold storage.
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quick bit of research shows 1-methylcyclopropene (also known as 1-MCP) is used for cold storage. wonder if that’s the culprit. Also saw that on average an apple bought from a grocery store in the US is 14 months old…all that time in cold storage surrounded by MCP must surely affect the taste…all the more reason to grow your own…
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No idea it was 14 months on average. I just figured it was a year as new ones come in there finishing up last years. Thanks for the heads up on that.
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Sorry to resurrect this old post but I signed up just to comment on this. I’ve been having this exact same thing happen lately and I thought I was having dental problems.
I’ve never tasted sewage but the taste/scent that I get is almost the slight whiff of a septic smell but then again almost metallic.
I had started thinking that something was reacting with some old amalgam fillings I have on my wisdom teeth. I had read some years ago about them possible breaking down over time and releasing mercury into your body and seriously thought something weird was up since I only seemed to get that taste when chewing up apples with my molars.
I was almost embarrassed to say anything but I finally said something to my wife one day when she made a face when eating an apple. Turns out she had noticed it too but then again, she has some amalgam fillings as well.
Perhaps the chemical mentioned reacts with amalgam? Do any of you have fillings that have noticed this taste?
I have noticed the taste/smell with pink ladies, honeycrisp, and granny smiths.
Has anyone else had noticed this are figured out what it is?
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My wife was given a couple of apples that looked beautiful, but the smell was overwhelming, not particularly unpleasant, but definitely off putting. It was a strong chemical smell, something like floor wax. We couldn’t stand to have them in the house, so I set them outside, a week later the smell was still there. We don’t normally eat store bought apples, so I don’t know how common this is.
I haven’t noticed any smells from them just sitting there. As a matter of fact, no store bought fruits seem to have a smell to me anymore, even strawberries.
After reading about cold storage of apples it basically states that apples don’t have that appley smell anymore because cold storage apples don’t ripen on the tree and don’t receive the nutrients ripening off the tree like they normally would.
Interesting
In WA, apples are barely budding, not even a bloom, and yet Chucks Produce had tiny Honeycrisps for sale 88 cents a lb and it said local. I bought 3. My gut said something is wrong, looks ripe but too tiny, 1/2 size. I bit in one and wanted to take them back. So bad! What a waste.
@David_DeafGardening yeah at first chucks had awsomapples all the time they’ve gone down hill for about a year now.
I suggest we tell them at the information desk. They should know if they switched farms they made a big error.
I don’t buy much fruit anymore but when I did I would occasionally get some with an off taste. My thoughts at the time was that they had been kept in storage for a long time and brought out to the stores as needed. I also wondered if a storage type chemical was used while during the down time that imparted an off taste. Not much of a problem now that I grow most of my own fruit.
See my post above…It’s all related to the chemical used during cold storage. It can impart an off-putting taste to the apples the longer they’ve been stored.
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I know it’s an old thread, but my pink lady right now is tasting pretty bitter with a brownish color right beneath the surface. Definitely not a fan.
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Your experience is certainly not reflective of what eating a fresh pink lady would be like…probably a bad batch or one that sat in storage too long…I eat mostly pink ladies and cripps pink so I’ll come across that every now and again…It’s disappointing when you do, but the price you pay to be able to eat the apples year round…
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PL is one of the best in my opinion.
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The taste is amazing, but it’s prone to just about every disease you can think of. Also the productivity in my orchard is the lowest of all apples so I decided this will be it’s last year. It’s a nice 7 year old tree so it will break my heart to cut it down but it’s been causing more headache than joy. Well it is what it is
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Just created an account to bump this thread up. I love Pink Lady apples, but for at least the past year every Pink Lady apple I’ve had has this weird bitter/chemical taste to it. A person above said that their apple had a brownish color beneath the surface. Yes, I just had one now with the same characteristic.
All the Pink Lady apples that I’ve had lately, have come from the company Stemilt. Their wikipedia page says they are from Wenatchee, Washington. The after taste is so nasty. Such an intense chemical-like after taste. Looks like I’ll be avoiding Pink Ladies for a while. The apples look nice. Nice bright pink color to them, but that taste! 
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Most likely EW20 Fungicide
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