“Americans have been falling hard for new apples,” says the New York Times. Three recently developed varieties – Ambrosia, Honeycrisp and Jazz – are in the top 10 for sales and were the only ones to record a sales increase in 2014. Mainstays such as Red Delicious and McIntosh slumped. Fruit breeders are creating new varieties with names such as SweeTango, SnapDragon and Cosmic Crisp. “Anyone can taste that Cosmic Crisp is special, but it takes a professional like Kate Evans, the apple breeder at Washington State University, to analyze why,” says the Times, which describes Cosmic Crisp as “dark, richly flavored and explosively crisp and juicy.” Evans is well-positioned since Washington state grows two-thirds of the U.S. apple crop.
Evans “and others who breed apples for large growers are well aware that many consumers are fed up with mass-marketed fruit chosen mainly for looks and shelf life. Their current quest is to restore the flavor and eating quality, despite the compromises required by large-scale production,” said the Times. Developing a new apple is a protracted process. Cosmic Crisp was hybridized in 1997 and won’t be available until 2019. Growers are so eager that WSU had to hold a drawing to allocate trees.