Saturday, September 18, 2021

HunnyZ *

Large orange-red apple, broad and tapered

Today the wholesale-retail apple system has coughed up a brand new variety bearing a contender for Most Fwow Up Name of All Time.

But let's not hold that against the apple, which had no role in the marketing brainstorming or trademark registration that produced the name. That is all on us human beans.

HunnyZ is large and moderately ribbed, broad and a little tapered, with an orange-red blush over light green yellow. 

It sports many small lenticel dots that are light tan in the blush and green elsewhere, and it's calyx is open. One sample, not shown, bears these colors in splotchy streaks that suggest Honeycrisp.

Both are a little lopsided.

Any aroma these once may have had has been leached away by the market system of processing, storage, transportation, and retail.

Chomp

The Hun (I like typing that better) has very crisp, coarse, butter-yellow flesh that is quite sweet and juicy. The underlying flavors are floral and corn syrup, but there is a little melon.

The crunch is outstanding and these flavors work well together. This apple eats like a cross between Honeycrisp and Gala, and to my taste is better than either.

So, what is the deal with this apple and its unfortunate name? Does it like to be called "hunneez" or "hunny-zee," the latter like some Winnie-The-Pooh–themed rapper?

The good news is that the terminal consonant is not actually capitalized. It's just drawn that way on the PLU sticker.

PLU sticker shows a Winnie-ther-Pooh style honey jar labeled "Hunnyz", with the last letter apparently capitalized

(Note the mottled blush.)

More in favor of this variety: as I suspected, it was picked in September of 2020. Nonetheless the Hun still has some excellent eating qualities a year later.

It made its market debut last December.

Several sources say Hunnyz is a Honeycrisp x Crimson Crisp cross.

3 comments:

  1. My first taste of the Hunnyz was enjoyable. Then to find out like the Envy apple it doesn’t turn brown as fast as most varieties. That’s great at our house as my guy can’t eat a whole one. I figured when I got up this morning I’d be tossing what he left on the cutting board overnight! To my surprise it wasn’t hardly brown! Awesome

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  2. I just found these for the first time at Whole Foods in Asheville last week and we tasted them alongside Lady Alice (another official first for me) and autumn glory and McIntosh. I was impressed! I'm not usually a sugar sweet apple person, but this one had the pure cane sugar sweetness of fresh sugar cane and the crunch to match. It was like eating sugar cane without the fiber, or like fresh water chestnuts. I didn't notice much fragrance or definite flavor, but found this to be overall very enjoyable. We put these in our kids Christmas stockings and I was surprised to see that the one my daughter gnawed the skin off last night had essentially zero browning today--not too surprising I guess, with the total lack of acid or tannin.

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    Replies
    1. @Alice E: I doubt a total lack of acidity, or this apple, though sweet, would have not been as good. Even sweeties need some balancing tart.

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