Don’t be like me and buy up all the varieties just to realize you don’t like them… i would start with 2 first then see if they’re worth the plantation if you haven’t tried it yet… i bought 15 and let them die, threw them out, or gave them away all within 1 season
Think of honeyberries more like sour cherries or lemons. You have to add sugar and then they are great. I have around 40 bushes, so we freeze and eat them on cereal or baked in flips year round. The hard part is keeping the cedar waxwings out of them, even with nets. The birds are determined to get them if it’s the last thing they do, which unfortunately it sometimes is.
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So I just tried my first couple (readily came off the bush by just touching) and the best way for me to describe is an extremely tart blueberry (think of tartest blueberry you’ve had) so my next step is collecting enough for me to try cooking with. My gooseberries taste like sugar compared to the honeyberries 
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You don’t have to add sugar, but you should either add some type of sweetener (sugar, honey, sweet fruit, etc.) or be able to appreciate tart-sweetish fruit. My family and I pick them off the bush and eat them fresh… including my little girls who are 8 and 10. That said, they eat more strawberries than honeyberries AND they don’t know any better, lol. They are growing up on a farm without influences of schoolmates or television commercials. You can learn to eat anything, just ask our Aussie friends, some of whom apparently enjoy Vegemite. 
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Unless you have a very tart tasting variety, I’d say they’re not ripe yet.
All my varieties have a fairly mild taste. Sweet, with a little acidity.
I struggled last year to figure out how to know if they are ripe or not. And ended up with just tasting a berry every day until they got gradually better.
Seems like they should be left hanging at least a week or two after they turn blue.
Squeezeing the berries to feel if they were getting soft seemed to be a good indication, but not always…
The more blue the inside of the berry was, the sweater the taste.
That was my impression.
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How long did you wait after it turned blue to eat it? You’re supposed to wait up to 3 weeks for them to fully ripen and reach their maximum sugar potential. Otherwise they’re very tart.
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Probably about 9 days? I’ve only tried about 5 over the past few days. They have had different levels of tart. They are also soft when you gently squeeze them. Gonna try n let them hang longer. Bush is uneven ripening 
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I went out a few hours ago with my little girls and we found some berries that had just turned. We ate every one of them that we could find, which was only about a dozen from +100 shrubs. They were tart-delicious and we really enjoyed the crunchiness of the under ripe berries. I was busy taking photos of my pawpaw flowers and totally forgot to take any of the berries that we found. 
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my grand daughter loves my honeyberries once i showed her which ones to pick. she made some funny faces when she would eat a half green one. the alpine strawberries are also claimed by her. a fully ripened aurora is very hard to beat. i have all the boreals and strawberry sensation and they are good but auroras still my fave. i prefer them fresh with a little sugar and milk or in a smoothie orin oatmeal. makes a great cobbler or muffin also. they can be cut with sweeter fruit if you prefer. ive mixed them with black currants and blueberries.
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I have indigo gem, tundra and Aurora.
Aurora did definitely have a better flavor than the other 2. But I’m gonna try n make some syrup this week with them probably
They probably need to hang longer, this is also their first year producing berries for me, so might be that too ?
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From what I have gathered, the one thing the older russian varieties have on the japanese and hybrids is that they are ripening evenly on the whole plant. That would make figuring out their ripeness so much easier. Hopefully we get this trait in the future in the better tasting varieties
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i have both and neither ripen all at once but the difference between indigo gem and strawberry sensations ripening times is only about 10 days difference this far north. that gets even less once you get into central Canada. basicly all of them ripen 1 after another in a little over a month in early summer.
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Well, I went out of town for mother’s Day, came back to all my berries gone except for 4 green ones on my one bush 
evil birds !! They even got ones deep inside the one bush !! They would have been hanging for 2 weeks when I got home
Guess I’ll be netting next year
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Net them and also be sure to weigh the net down to the ground. The birds hunt for any little hole or gap, even try to get their heads through the net. They totally go ape over honeyberries!
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I’m gonna bag the 4 remaining ones. I’m so bummed! I probably would have had a quart from the 2 bushes
I’m gonna have to bag my 3 cherries on my cutie pie bush berry beside them. I want to at least try one !
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Why not build a little hardwire cage for them? They’re safer than nets.
I think everyone on this thread should convert to 
blueberries 
it’s about 3-5 days after they turn dark blue/ purple that they’re good to go vs weeks. 
Come to the dark side…
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No way… but I will grow both. 
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Blueberries too particular about their soil 
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tried blueberries, they dont grow well in my area, soil not acidic enough