For the past week, I have been munching my way through a bag of about 12 tiny Piñata apples that I got at Trader Joes, a national supermarket chain.
(By "tiny" I mean small medium, with diameters of about 2¼ inches.)
Piñata is a great new variety with some wild flavors, and these little guys are especially hard and crisp. TJ's touts them as "baby" apples, which is brilliant (if inaccurate) marketing for apples that other retailers likely reject as too small.
At this size they are easy to snack on! And very welcome this time of year.
I stopped by the market last night to pick up some more apples. I was glad to see the Opals there as they are a great new aromatic variety. I also was suprised to find a large mound of the new Junami apples. I tried my first one today. These are very large apples. My two expamples were the size of a medium Wolf River. The only thing I seem to agree with the marketing folks on this apple is that they do have a nice amount of juice. Not as juicy as a good Honeycrisp though! They have a chewy bite to them and are not like most of the new crunchy varieties. I enjoy a good chewy apple, but this apple has a thick Red Delish type skin which I do not care for. Given its parentage I was thinking I would get some aromatics too but this was none in the case. The flavor was generically sweet. The peel gave a grassy aftertaste. I am not really sure where this will fit into the modern apple market here in the states. There are so many superior varieties in my opinion. Remember though, I have only eaten one of these. I think the texture will put some folks off. It is on the firmer side of chewy but this example was certainly closer to that classic chewy English texture that I would say is not a big hit here in the States. For me, I would take the new Opal apple over this any day of the week!
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