I have three of these extremely flattened beauties from Mike, a reader in Southern California. They are green and blushed, with pronounced ribbing and short thick stems.
These samples are on the small side of medium and have russeted lenticels that are easier to spot in the unblushed regions.
One shows some splitting around the calyx, which is shallow and open.
The partial and orange-red blush is glossier than the rest, and some samples are wearing a bit of russet.
Pretty, Unusual
Sierra is rock hard and mine smell sweetly of hay.
First sample, the smallest, has breaking crisp light yellow flesh, firm and fine-grained. I'm eating it in October.
Tasting Notes
There are berries, too, in the background, and lively hints of spice. The peal sometimes provides a little vegetable note towards the end of the chew.
The finish is sweet.
It doesn't sound all that interesting when broken down like this, but the sum of Sierra's parts is refreshing, with a flavor set that hangs together well. The texture is first rate.
In late December, some of the green peal has grown more yellow in storage. The texture is still breaking crisp, and the flavors still reflect high levels of both sugar and tart, with citric and (faintly) caramel notes, and some generic spiciness.
This is a lively flavor set.
In short, very like my October tasting notes, perhaps slightly mellowed and even, maybe, better. I would rate Sierra Beauty as a good keeper!
And as a splendid apple that deserves to be better known. Thanks, Mike!
Sierra's Story
Pomiferous says the Beauty is good for 8 weeks of cold storage. Based on my experience, I'd say, "and maybe longer."
Pomiferous also tells us (alas, without attribution) that the apple is "thought to have originated from an apple core discarded by a miner during the early part of the California gold rush." Other websites make a similar claim.
There's a rich telling of this apple's story on the Gowans web page (link above). Gowans presses a cider from this apple.;
I held off on posting this for 2 months to test Sierra's keeping qualities. It's probably my last apple review of the year! Happy holidays to all.
Have you heard of Henderson Llewelling? If Sierra Beauty came from an apple seed discarded by a forty-miner, there’s a good chance he got that apple from Llewelling.
ReplyDeleteHere is a too long account of his life, but he lived a full life. Born in North Carolina, he migrated with his family and other Quakers to Indiana then Iowa. He operated an orchard and was a stationmaster on the ungerground railroad. After a falling out with other Quakers, his family of ten traveled by covered wagon along the Oregon Trail with a second covered wagon filled with boxes of amended soil with more than 700 young fruit and nut trees -- apples, pears, peaches, cherries, quince, walnut, and hickory -- as well as grape vines and currant and gooseberry bushes. They mostly travelled alone, since the heavy wagon of trees couldn’t keep up with a wagon train. When the family reached Columbia River, hostile Cayuse warriors started to attack the Lewelling wagon train but suddenly turned peaceful. When they saw the wagon full of trees, the Cayuse believed that the Great Spirit must live with the family, and instead of attacking them, they helped the Llewellens unload their trees from the wagon so it could cross the river, move the boxes of trees, and reload them onto the wagon on the other side. With a son-in-law, Llewellen soon established the first commercial orchard in the Pacific Northwest, and their grafted trees were used to establish orchards throughout Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Within a few years, they sold more than 100,000 trees at the price of $1.00 to $1.50. The Gold Rush lured Lewelling to California, but not for the gold, but to sell fruit to forty-miners. He did well, and in 1854 the Llewelling family established Fruitvale, now a neighborhood of Oakland. His adventures weren’t done, however. After almost twenty years of marriage, Henderson’s wife Elizabeth died, and he went a little crazy. In California, he married four wives in quick succession, and then tried to found a free love society in Honduras without his latest wife. The Harmonial Brotherhood had Quaker influences, but also dabbled in spiritualism and vegetarianism. It failed almost before their ship reached Honduras, disharmony being triggered by a fight over eggs. Henderson Luellen – not sure when the spelling was changed – returned to California a defeated man and died 18 years later in poverty and estranged from his family. Hardly known now, he did more for the apple industry in North America by far than Johnny Appleseed, who had a much better publicist.
This wonderful story is my comment of the day today.
DeleteHey, I recognize that apple! Sorry it took me so long to get back to your blog and read your post. I myself was a little disappointed in this apple this year; I had remembered it as being better. But maybe because it was, in previous years, one of the few fresh-off-the-tree apples I had from my microorchard. This year the Hudson's Golden Gem did real well and I think the Sierra Beauty was a bit medicinal by comparison. And I still worry that I was a bit impatient in picking the ones I sent you. Also, I am convinced that my microorchard does NOT have conditions that lead to optimal examples of most apples! I hope you someday get to try some of these from a Northern California orchard more suited to their growth.
ReplyDeleteHi Mike! I quite liked the ones you sent, thanks! Tasty and they held up well.
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