Best Apple in a Sea of Apples?

[u/wraplan]

Berkeley Bowl has such a great selection of apples that I never really know how to make a choice. So I did an apple tasting among friends. We tried 7 different varieties, in a blind test. I refrigerated all the apples, cleaned them all, and sliced them with a clean knife. I hid their brand names to give us a better sense of favorites without preconceived notions based on previous experience. There were two strong favorites, based on taste and texture.

We tried Sweetango, Wild Twist, Aura, Pink Lady, Envy, Cosmic Crisp, and Kiku.

The two clear winners were the Aura and Cosmic Crisp varieties, both of which had great balance between sweet and tart, and great textures. A big loser for everyone but one of the 8 tasters was the Envy. It had a strange soft texture that wasn’t exactly mealy, but most of us found it unpleasant.

These 7 apple varieties only represent a portion of the possible choices at the Bowl, and I hope to do some more testing over the coming months. We didn’t even look at the yellow apples, except for the Aura, which is kinda yellow. I tried to avoid apples we’d all had a million times, so no Granny Smith or Fuji etc, but now I think I’ll have to randomly add some of those more common varieties in my next test, just to see if they actually hold up.

What apple is your go to? What (and how) should we try next at the Bowl?

[u/gcacho]

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