How to find good apples

dirtychinchilla

dirtychinchilla

dirtychinchilla

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Joined
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Woking
No pun here. I eat a lot of apples and I'm sick of buying terrible ones.

Does anyone have any tips?

I like the tart ones - I really don't like the sweet oens. I've found the supermarket apples are, more often than not, flavourless.

I used to exclusively eat Granny Smiths, which are delicious, but I've been trying to branch out (if you'll now forgive the pun) to apples with more red on them.

I was thinking maybe the local farm shop would be a good place to start.
 
Tescos... I'm not an Apple (fruit) connoisseur...
There's only two supermarkets near me, Lidl and Tescos.. The Lidl one's don't tend to last a week, the Tescos one always seem to have a rotten one in the pack but the others are fine.
 
We have found that the big bags of seasonal red apples at Lidl have been very good. £3 for a bag of 8 to 12 depending on size/variety.

Last month or so were very large red, didn't realise the variety was specified at the time, which were very nice. Fairly sweet and remind me of non-Gold Thatchers cider, like Katy or whatever it's called.

At the moment they are Braeburn, crisp and good balance between sweet and tart. Also bigger than I usually find in Tesco.

M+S is very good for any fruit and veg, just not as convenient where I am.
 
I would say Grow your own..
I tried it a few years ago with cherry bushes. and every year since i have got tons of cherries and the taste of them compared to shop bought is like night and day.
Since then i have bought a Apple tree (cox's) and a Pear tree ( conference ) looking at them today this year looks like i will be getting fruit from them tone of fruit buds all over them.
It may sound weird but it really is quite exciting waiting to see how much fruit i get and what it tastes like.
 
I like to buy the “best of British” apples in the supermarket. Random varieties and usually pretty tasty. Had some with red flesh unexpectedly too.

Sainsbury’s and Tesco have both been good at supplying these.
 
Junami/Milwa variety bought from Tesco. Grown in UK.

Problem I find is that a lot of apples sold as a named variety eg Cox or Russet are not really those traditional varieties but just a modern version that taste very average.
I did some apple picking in NZ decades ago and to my memory modern Braeburn/Gala apples do not taste anything close to what they did back then.


When I was a kid we had 8 apple trees in our back garden. To this day I still remember this small decrepit tree in a corner that had about 2 small gnarled apples a year.
Its still the best tasting apple I have ever come across.
 
I only eat Jazz apples, which I discovered when I worked in fruit and stock from NZ came in.

They are probably sweeter than you would like, but are packed full of flavour and worth a go.

Now grown in many other countries, including the UK with the name to look for for me is those from NZ marked ENZA, which are much bigger than the UK can produce and for me are a better eat.
 
Glaston said:
When I was a kid we had 8 apple trees in our back garden. To this day I still remember this small decrepit tree in a corner that had about 2 small gnarled apples a year.
Its still the best tasting apple I have ever come across.
Click to expand...
My parents have got an apple tree in their garden and they're still the best apples I eat. It doesn't grow very many and they're tiny little things, but they're so crispy and tasty. Shame I only get about 4 a year.
 
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