Hello, I have a CSA from the Home Orchard Education Center (formerly the Home Orchard Society) and I’ve gotten some pears that are just downright astringent after ripening. The pears I recently tasted that are astringent were worden seckel, but other pears have also been off. Also, a few years ago I attended their tasting, and most, if not all, of the pears were exceptionally astringent to me. I’m trying to figure out which varieties I like and don’t like to see what I should add to my home garden, and I certainly want to make sure I don’t replicate the problem. The pears seem “ripe” and I know they spent a few weeks in cold storage. Did they not spend enough time in storage? Too much time on the tree or too little? Not a good variety?
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Another type that was particularly astringent was starking delicious. Both taste nice and sweet underneath the astringency.
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I have a large Starking delicious and I have yet to get one. Squirrels pick about 5 bushels Me none
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When you write “astringent”, do you mean specifically that the pear causes your tongue to feel dry and rough? Perhaps your pears were under-ripe and gritty-textured, not the same as astringency.
You might want to post directly to homeorchardsociety.org, where there are people with direct knowledge of the Orchard.
I mean astringent, like an unripe banana or an unripe persimmon. Thanks!
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I have one here that was supposed to be ‘Orient’… but it’s not, so I call it ‘NOrient’… it is astringent at all stages of development - as Amy Manning says - not unlike an unripe persimmon. I’ve sent scions to a couple of friends who wanted tannic pears for perry production. Only the deer eat it here.
I once grafted a pear for a friend, who wanted a clone of the ancient ‘Sugar Pear’ growing at her grandparents’ home… it LOOKED like Seckel, but it was SO astringent… all the way to the core!..that I couldn’t swallow a bite of it. Needless to say, I didn’t graft one for myself.
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