I feel like this has happened to most apples, even most fruit, forcing fruit to become all-year fruit in general has made those fruits worse off in the long term in terms of quality due to the necessity to make them long lasting. I used to personally dislike all apples until I started getting them from farmers markets that only sold them seasonally as opposed to supermarkets or costco, suddenly they started to taste like something and not just water.

Maybe I missed it in that massive article, but did they ever actually come to a conclusion why the apples taste worse today? Except maybe long term storage?

It was a really long article about the history of the apple and difficult growing it, but I didn't see the title answered anywhere. It ended taking about surplus and storage requirements.

I’ve been buying the organic apples for the last year and for some reason they seem to have the flavor that is missing in the less expensive brands

Enshittification but for fruit

I never particularly liked Honeycrisp apples and never understood the hype, but seeing this #1 on HN I feel like one of the cool kids ahead of the curve on a niche topic. Jokes aside about 5 years ago I began reading about the industry side of all these new trendy apple varieties, much of it is industry driven and interesting for those into that sort of thing.

The best in my opinion is Fuji followed closely by Gala.

If you ever eat Cosmic Crisps, you'll throw rocks at a Honeycrisp.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp

I think there is a newer cultivar that should be superseding the Cosmic Crisp here soon.

Edit - the Kudos Apple. https://twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/talking-apples-u-m-0

How do we make local apples a bigger thing again

This is true for most fruits and vegetables and it's the cost of having everything available at any time and for less money.

This is the same story for every new variety of apple. It becomes popular because of its positive characteristics (sweetness, tanginess, juicyness, crispness), but then slowly over time it gets cultivated for mass market appeal (uniform color, shape, shelf life) and the variety loses what made it good.

The best apple variety is generally the new one. The market is strewn with the discarded remains of formerly good apples like Fuji and Gala.

Basically, they are being stored too long, because Honeycrisp season is only in September, and the apple industry in Washington state is trying to provide them year round.

This is compounded by the subtle effect of the trees being adapted for Minnesota, whereas Washington’s climate is much warmer.

SnapDragon is a vastly improved version of Honeycrisp anyway. The only real issue with it is that only growers within New York State are allowed to grow it, so it's not nearly as available.

She doesn't really explain why the honeycrisps she gets at the farmer's market are hit-or-miss now, which would have been a more interesting story to unwind.

The first couple of years I found Honeycrisp at my local market, which would have been 2001 and 2002 (because I'll never forget a lot of things from September 2001), the apples were HUGE. More like a large grapefruit than an apple in size. They still had the great flavor and texture of later Honeycrisps, it was a huge shock compared to normal apples at the time. It may have been something with the weather that produced them like that, but man would I love to see those things pop up again.

Helped a friend film a video about what happened to red delicious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgZNDTJSvJQ

This rankings site [1] was shared on HN a couple years ago [2], and since then I’ve switched to Honeycrisp.

While I agree they aren’t always the most tasty, they are almost always (like 98%) crisp and never mealy to the point I want to stop eating it, unlike nearly every other breed I’ve tried (which admittedly is only about 7-8 or the most common ones).

I will take a less flavorful crisp apple 100% of the time over a mealy apple.

So even a mediocre Honeycrisp is, to me, still way better than nearly all the other ones.

[1] https://applerankings.com/

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33639206

They are just bad in the offseason though? New batches should be good?

My favorite is the kanzi, but it’s not really available year round. Most apples peak in November anyway

I wonder if you could test for crispness using ultrasonic tech.

Just make sauce out of the mealy ones.

I went through this just yesterday. Bought a bunch of Honeycrisps, and was underwhelmed compared to my memory of them. I also don't like Cosmic Crisps anymore.

Side note: Those new jumbo blueberries are insane.

Just seems to happen with every apple I like, unfortunately. I think I'm currently on Cosmic Crisp or Jazz apples as my mains. I give them about five years before they start to suck.

I always cut them into slices, then leave them in an airtight plastic container for an hour or two, so the juice can seep out a little.

Cosmic Crisp is a new varietal that seems like a solid successor to honey crisp. It seems like they started in a cooler climate (I first encountered them in northern Oregon), and they're fantastic.

If you live within a few hours of apple country, do yourself a favor next fall and go discover some new varietals. There are hundreds produced commercially (read: some farm grows them) that will never see a supermarket. Try a bunch and use your favorites for fun dishes you rarely make: pies, tarts, cider, butter, cut them into oatmeal, sandwiches, salads. They can taste so amazing and different that it's a fun adventure. (Plus then you can pretend you're a fancy food person, saying to your friends "Ooh, the Macoun had a good season this year!")

And if you have a bit of land, start some trees! They are a wonderful gift for future generations. Plant a bunch and leave them alone, let the survivors flourish. Worst case they die and you have some good firewood for a bbq.

Apple grower here. I still don't understand Honeycrisps. I'm on the younger side, so I haven't seen that many years of Honeycrisp, but I feel I have never had a good one. My experience of Honeycrisp is that it is super crunchy, almost too much so, but completely devoid of flavor. To me, it's like eating crunchy water.

As others have pointed out, this article doesn't actually explain why (or even if) Honeycrisp has gotten worse. One thing I will add to this discussion, though I don't know if it is true in the case of Honeycrisp, is that it is definitely not a matter of breeding (nor selective breeding, breeding for storage, etc): in order to produce more apple trees, Honeycrisps (or any other variety) aren't bred, they are asexually propagated through grafting. That means all Honeycrisp trees are more-or-less genetically identical.

That said, just like any organism, as trees grow and produce new cells at the tips of branches, there is always a chance for a mutation. Sometimes these branch mutations (called "sports") have visible genetic differences: stronger coloration, earlier ripening, or perhaps earlier storage (though this is harder to notice). This is how Red Delicious went from a wonderful apple to tasteless, mealy cardboard: sports were selected over time that prioritized storage and color over texture and flavor.

As an apple grower, I have had the opportunity to taste Honeycrisps straight off the tree, and to me, they taste just as flavorless as the ones I get from the store. I grow almost all heirloom varieties, and I can tell you there is one that for me is head-and-shoulders above the rest: Wickson Crab. If you are in California, I recommend marking your calendar for September to search this variety out at the farmers markets (or better, plant a tree yourself!). There are many other wonderful varieties that stand out from grocery store apples. In a pinch, I'll get a Pink Lady from the store, as I find it's the most flavorful of the commonly available apples, but I find they sit heavy in my stomach in a way that homegrown or farmer's market apples don't. I believe this is to do with the fact that apples available at the grocery store are picked early, before the starches have converted into sugars, so the higher starch content may be harder to digest.

Hint: any apple with an "apple green" undercoat is underripe; to pick a ripe apple, wait for that bright green to mellow out or change colors. For redder apples, it can be harder to see, but most apples have some green visible under the red (Pink Lady is again a great example of this). And yes, Granny Smith apples are so sour precisely because they are picked and sold underripe; a ripe Granny Smith is yellow and sweet.

TIL "10 billion apples a year get picked by hand in the state of Washington".

Interview question: estimate number of pickers and number of trees.

Now do chicken. Here in the USA chickens are getting bigger (I saw a 6.5 pound chicken in the store the other day) and blander. The tissue to me seems very spongy. What is going on with chickens?

I'm with all the folks who say they've swapped Honeycrisp for Cosmic Crisp. The Honeycrisp I get now is a poor shadow of what it used to be. This article is very interesting. I suspected the quality shift had to do with mass market selling, but it's nice to see the long form version of what I suspected.

TLDR: The Honeycrisp apple, developed by the University of Minnesota in the 1980s, was initially celebrated for its crisp texture and balanced flavor, quickly becoming a consumer favorite. However, its delicate nature and susceptibility to disorders like bitter pit made it challenging to cultivate, particularly in warmer regions such as Washington State, a major hub for apple production. Despite these challenges, growers planted Honeycrisp trees extensively to meet high demand, storing the apples for prolonged periods to ensure year-round availability. This mass production and extended storage compromised the apple’s quality, leading to an oversupply and reduced consumer satisfaction. Consequently, the Honeycrisp has become a commoditized apple, losing the exceptional qualities that once distinguished it.

Storage is the key culprit. One solution for that in the US is to buy New Zealand apples when it's nowhere near apple season in the northern hemisphere. Crazy to ship apples half-way round the world but they are delicious. I mostly see Envy apples from NZ in California.

Garlic is another item ruined by long storage. Christopher Ranch is reportedly storing garlic for 2+ years in refrigeration. That's why it doesn't taste like garlic anymore.

I used to have an orchard with c. 35 apple trees, 2 of which were honeycrisp. I can confirm that they are tricky trees to manage. I was theoretically in a good area for honeycrisps. But the trees were prone to all sorts of maladies that didn’t affect my other varietals, including antique varietals that are traditionally thought of as “difficult”. And when they did grow fruit it was usually small and misshapen.

Apples are interesting and this is a great example of the unexpected challenges you can face growing them. Every honeycrisp tree is a perfect clone of the very first one, but the environment of each is not a perfect clone of their original environment. And the interplay of genetics and growing conditions can have very unpredictable results.

Just did a CTRL-F and I am shocked nobody is talking about the magnificent McIntosh. Does the rest of the world (outside of Canada) not get them? The fruit has red and green skin, a tart flavour, and tender white flesh, which ripens in late September. They've converted many, many people from other variants...

Just a side note here... it's shocking to drive through the orchards of Washington and Oregon and see how much fruit never gets harvested because there's no commercial market for it. Acres and acres of fruit left on the trees until they fall off and rot because they aren't varieties desirable in the market any longer. Why don't farmers replace with new varieties? In some cases they do, but the capital expense is considerable to tear out trees / bushes / etc and replace and wait for mature fruit.

I would normally only buy apples around september/october in the Netherlands, trying to get them fresh from local orchards when possible. Elstar is amazing when plucked right from the tree, but becomes mealy before the end of the year IMO.

My new go to is the Magic Star variety, which has been sold as "Sprank" for the last 3 years at least in the Netherlands. These apples keep amazingly well; they ran out of stock around the summer in the last two years, but I found them delicious year round. I hope that this cultivar does not befall the same fate as the Honeycrisp, which I had the pleasure of tasting 5 years ago.

It’s not just apples, dear. Mass market capitalism does this to *everything*. Everything just becomes so bland. When I moved from my native Canada to a poor backwater Eastern European country (not in the EU) I suddenly noticed how different the experience is with everything, from your local coffee shop to the tech coworking spaces. The experience was just so much more personal, rich, and boutique, and lovely. Now I can’t stand Starbucks and WeWork, and most Western consumer brands anymore. Sure, being in a poor country you also get a lot of rotten apples as well, but the variety is just so invigorating.

One thing I never realized is that apple varieties can't be grown from seeds.

"This is because seedling apples are 'extreme heterozygotes'. Rather than resembling their parents, seedlings are all different from each other and from their parents." [1]

"To propagate a cultivar [variety], material from the original tree (scion) is joined to a rootstock. The rootstock provides the roots for the new plant and the scion forms the top part of the new plant, which produces the fruit. The rootstock comes from another cultivar selected specifically for its ability to grow well in the soil and induce desirable growth habits of the scion (such as dwarfing)."

"The scion is introduced to the rootstock by either grafting or budding. In grafting, a length of dormant wood from the original tree is notched into the rootstock. In budding, small buds are notched into the rootstock. Budding produces more trees from the same amount of wood than grafting." [2]

So when you read "cultivation", it's not like breeding green beans or corn, where you can crossbreed plants and come up with a new type that will "breed true" and then you can make a bunch of seeds to distribute. Cultivation is basically growing a bunch of trees, finding the right combo, then creating a bunch of them

So commercial growers with orchards will buy trees from breeders who create that type of tree by managing the grafting/budding process.

Apparently, though we don't know when breeding started, it's been going on for thousands of years.

Also, Johnny Appleseed wasn't doing anyone favors by spreading apple seeds everywhere because the trees would produce mostly inedible apples.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Breeding

2. https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/844-breeding-a-new...

Really enjoy honeycrisp apples with caramel or chocolate coating! Yummy!

Where can I find Red Delicious varieties from back when they were considered good? I remembered them being fine/decent/whatever when I was a kid, and recently just out of curiosity bought some Red Delicious from a local grocery store and was surprised to find they were completely inedible and totally disgusting. Like not just less sweet or less tangy, but super gross and almost like eating mushy plastic-wax wrapped in leather, and nothing like what I remembered. It sounds like they actually have been bred to be different now, so are there places that still have the older variety?

Walmart honeycrisp in October was the best apple I've ever had

Best apples I've ever had were cosmic crisps I picked off the tree.

60 years ago Cox's was by far my favorite apple for flavor but they could get soft and mealy in storage. Gala is the closest descendant that is much crisper and still has a lot of the Cox's flavor. I've never liked crisp or acidic apples, except in crumbles or pies where Granny Smith is my goto.

My family has been going to the same orchard in SW Michigan for maybe 8 years in a row.

At first, they only had 2 rows of Honeycrisp apples. Maybe 2% of the trees there...

Now more rows are 'Honeycrisp' than not. As far as I know, they didn't replace all those previously 'not Honeycrisp' trees, though.

And they taste like paint. Ugh.

I’m curious if incorporating technology, like image analysis apps (size, colour, quality), could help address some of these issues. Any thoughts from any of the growers out there?

Wow I thought I was the only one who thought this? My timeline matches pretty close to the authors. I worked at a startup around 2013 that had fruit deliveries, and I ate a honeycrisp apple there for the first time in my life and I fell in love. Like the author, I started eating those apples out of desire, not because it was the only thing left.

But in the last 2 years, I didn't notice it, but I have been pretty dissatisfied with them but I never really thought about it until this article. It sheds light as to exactly why I don't like it anymore, and that's pretty sad that the industry is getting into that state.

Cosmic crisp is the truth.

Wow. Weird when something on HN hits this close to home. I work in AgTech (automated irrigation) in Washington State. I can attest to the love-hate boom-bust relationship this variety is having with the Washington apple farmer.

The article leaves a key point out. This fruit tree is really temperamental to water correctly. Irrigators love and hate this thing. Some fruit bears overwatering gracefully. But with this tree, it begs for water, but if you overwater it even a little, the fruit fails easily. I've watched some big players (Pytech) dump millions of dollars into closed (fully automated), open (just telemetry and recommendation, human then waters) and hybrid loop irrigation methods to try and get this right. It remains a real pain to get right.

(edit: the cosmic crisp is also difficult to grow Just Right(tm))

Can anyone explain why tomatoes always suck now?

So it seems that we get different apples in Europe and the US? I'm from Spain and haven't even heard of Honeycrisp or Cosmic Crisp.

Here, the common apples you can see in supermarkets are Golden Delicious (called just Golden here), Royal Gala, Pink Lady, Fuji, Pippin, Granny Smith, Red "Delicious", Kanzi, maybe a few more than I'm forgetting, but no Honeycrisp or Cosmic Crisp as far as I know.

since folks are sharing favorites:

Red Astrachan ftw

(iykyk)

I live in the Okanagan in British Columbia and the local honeycrisp are still good here. I think the colder climate and smaller scale farms here make for a better apple. We also have long term storage facilities where the apples are stored in nitrogen which really helps with freshness.

The local place I go to is straight from the grower and they have a 24/7 cold storage facility of apple bins operated by the honour system. All apples are $1 a pound.

Part of the issue here is that wineries have been historically more profitable than orchards so there are many fewer places to buy local fruit. In the past two years however, there has been cold snaps which have killed 50% and 90% of grape vines subsequently so people are starting to question the stability of wineries.

This article doesn't explain why a hudson valley grown honeycrisp would taste worse now than 10 years ago? Those are still coming from the boutique farms where you can pick them off the tree. It only explains why big apple in Washington is ruining the national honeycrisp market. Or did I miss something?

Honeycrisp apples are still great if you can find a local orchard that sells them direct. From the grocery store they are a bit more inconsistent and merely an upper tier Apple.

I suspect the popularity of honeycrisp will eventually lead it to the same fate as Red Delicious, but only time will tell.

The wide range of preferences expressed here makes me think that the best apple is one grown near you—and different varieties are better suited for different climate regions.

Unfortunately I can confirm it. I was buying those like crazy but not anymore. Their once incredible taste has gone.

> making it the state’s fourth-largest cultivar after Red Delicious, Gala, and Fuji.

Red Delicious has to be the nastiest apple cultivar in existence. Why in the world are they growing that many? Replace them with something decent like Pink Lady.

This proves there is always something better and people are never happy. I myself is perfectly happy with Gala apples.

I’ve never understood the hype of honeycrisp. Sugarbees are my first choice and if they aren’t available I’ll go with Fuji.

I’ve got an apple tree that I’ve grafted 20 varieties onto. But honeycrisp isn’t one of them.

Are Envy apples a thing in the US? They’re available here in Australia and are light years better than everything else I’ve ever had, at basically the same price point.

Fujis are great. They are consistently crisp AND sweet. None can still compare, even the new varieties are lacking something that a Fuji already has.

Everyone is so obsessed with WA and MN apples that they miss out on the good ones grown in New York, which used to be known for its apples!

Shizukas can be grown here, which I strongly recommend. But honestly most varieties you can get direct from a farm are edible (except Red Delicious, which for some reason continues to be grown even in independent farms even though it's universally acknowledged to be trash).

If you’re in the NorthEast try and get some Macoun (pronounced Ma-cown) apples in the fall.

They spoil fast and don’t transport well because the skin is extremely thin, but those same qualities make them excellent apples to eat.

Some ratings have them ranked a little lower because they aren’t very sweet but that’s what I love about them. They taste like apple. Not sugar. And the crisp/soft balance is awesome.

Edit: I read the apple rankings site which rates them very poorly. But if you actually read the review the complaint is about shelf life.

Read the comments where people have actually tasted it fresh and most of the commenters consider it the best apple they’ve tasted. But you gotta eat it freshly picked and/or as soon as you get it.

While defining x/0 = 0 is sound, it has tradeoffs, as OP acknowledges. In "Papers with computer-checked proofs" (2024), D. J. Bernstien wrote:

> There is a claim ... that “dividing by 0 is not allowed in mathematics, and hence this cannot be relevant to their work”, but in fact a mathematician is permitted to deduce b ≠ 0 from c = a/b, since a/b is undefined for b = 0. Redefining the notation to allow b = 0 breaks this. Unless it occurs to the author to state a conclusion c = a/b and a conclusion b ≠ 0, the proof assistant won’t check that b ≠ 0, whereas the reader will think that this has been checked.

https://cr.yp.to/papers/pwccp-20240727.pdf

I eat apples almost every day and have found that some growers are just simply better than others.

Have you ever looked at the sticker brand on your apples? If not, pay attention next time. Rainier has the best Honeycrisps. They're phenomenal. All others pale in comparison.

This realization made my wife and I pay more attention across all of our produce. We'll choose to buy produce based on the brand that's currently in stock. It feels absurdly picky, but I find it refreshing to at least know why a batch of brussel sprouts, apples, oranges, etc. tasted more bitter or less flavorful than normal.

It makes sense when you think about it. People care where their coffee beans come from, with flavor preferences of one region versus another. Why shouldn't we have flavor preferences based on who grows our produce?