This is the Best-Tasting Apple in the World
A few years ago, I went on a personal apple-tasting venture.
I wanted to pick my own personal favorite apple from one of Massachusetts’ beautiful orchards.
In apple-picking farms, you typically purchase a bag that you can fill up with as many different varieties and sizes of apples as you want.
You also get to taste and eat the apples by picking them right off the trees.
So on that day, I decided to document the different varieties.
Macoun, Red Delicious, Gala, Cortland, and McIntosh.
Empire, Granny Smith, Fuji, and Jonagold.
The list was never-ending.
I tasted every single one, took a picture of each on my iPhone, and gave them a score ranging from a D-minus to an A-plus.
I didn’t really follow any foodie-defined guideline for the scoring.
I just gave each a grade based on my own personal preference.
Tartness, sweetness, crispiness, and juiciness were my main factors.
I tried around 15 different apple types.
Later that day, I intentionally didn’t scroll back through my phone to see which was the winner because I wanted to do a blind re-tasting the following day (from the bag of apples that I took home) to confirm that the #1 apple was indeed the best.
However, the next day, I totally forgot about the whole thing (or I got lazy— I really can’t remember).
I just kept postponing the activity until all the apples were eaten. So I couldn’t repeat the tasting.
To make things worse, I had an update on my iPhone that erased everything on my phone, including my pictures and notes.
So I never found out which apple was the winner.
Total disappointment.
The following year, I repeated the tasting all over again.
Same farm. Same apples. Same process.
I gave each apple a grade and made sure I documented the scores on paper this time around.
And at the end of the day, I had one clear winner.
It was the only A-plus apple on the list.
The name?
Honeycrisp
The Honeycrisp is hands-down the best tasting apple in the world.
It has the perfect balance of tartness (a couple of notches less than a Granny Smith), and sweetness (milder than the Royal Gala but sweeter than a Red Delicious).
Its texture has the perfect crunch; a refined, solid crispiness that “pops” like no other apple I’ve eaten.
The most distinctive trait of the Honeycrisp, however, is its juiciness factor.
It just explodes in your mouth. Think of biting into an edible mini-juice box.
I learned that this is because the cells of the Honeycrisp can retain more fluids than your average apple.
It’s actually designed that way.
The Honeycrisp doesn’t naturally grow anywhere. It was bred by combining two different varieties of apples at the University of Minnesota.
To get the maximum kick of its taste, you have to gently bite into it until your teeth have a firm grip on the skin, and then, without biting all the way down, simply pull back to rip the flesh out.
And as you chew slowly on it, you’ll feel the incredible fluids oozing into your mouth.
Phenomenal.
I thought I struck gold. I had personally found an apple that was a winner out of all those second-class varieties.
Growing up, I thought apples came in only two flavors: red and green.
But here I was now, a freshly-minted apple aficionado who knew about this semi-secret apple that can be THE go-to fruit in future apple-picking trips.
But my excitement was short-lived.
It turned out that the Honeycrisp was one of the more popular apples for everyone else as well.
On one trip, I recall sitting next to a guy on a hay-ride who had filled up his entire 25lb bag with Honeycrisp apples only.
“I eat 3 or 4 a day,” he said. “They taste so good. They also help my knees.”
When I later asked a couple of the local farmers what the go-to apple is for visitors, they responded with “Honeycrisp” before I could even finish the sentence.
The Honeycrisp even has a patent and a trademark on it.
It’s also the most expensive apple in stores (starting at around $3.00 per pound as opposed to $1.99).
But it deserves it.
A couple of months ago, I was flipping through my computer’s backup folders, looking through files that I had saved a while ago.
And I stumbled on the iPhone note that I took when I went on that first apple-tasting trip.
I didn’t realize it was saved.
There was only one A-plus apple out of them all.
The winner?
Honeycrisp.
