Florina (Querina)

I have two of these pretty red apples today, large and medium. ¶ 

But note "today" is mid October, as I saved one of them to eat a bit later in the season.  ¶ 

The smaller is a bit asymmetrical from some accident of growth, but both are ribbed and wear constellations of large light lenticel dots and a very faint light bloom of excess natural wax. ¶ 

Rub that off and the apple has a semigloss shine. (Always wash an apple before eating, not to remove the harmless bloom but because you don't know where it has been.)

Both apples also have, each of them, a small tan wart or carbuncle, memento of some insignificant infection or invasion.

(These apples are in really great condition, generally, especially for organic fruit. I'm just reporting details.)

Ready to eat

Florina proves wonderfully crisp and juicy, with breaking flesh that is coarse grained and light yellow. It is somewhat dense and offers a good chew.

The apple's balance of sweet and tart is lively and good, with gingery spice tempered, faintly, by stone fruit and something mellow like vanilla caramel.

This is a first-rate flavor set that, married to Florina's lively crunch makes for very good eating.

A month later, this is still a very good apple, but not as crisp as in mid October. Its flavors have melted together and grown less distinct.

I was happy to eat this in mid November, but it's really an earlier apple.

Querina Florina

This is my second go-round with Florina, also sold as Querina. I have a whole catalog of "second bite" apples that I re-taste, for curiosity or other reasons.

In 2013 I was aware that my Querinas might not be the very best, and wrote

Querina would be quite good were the texture better. Did I miss peak on these?

I think I did. A better crunch really does elevate this apple.

Quite a few of these write-ups, unfortunately, are based on best-I-could-get samples. I am especially glad when I can report a second time based on a better one.

I will, however, shamelessly reproduce below the following pomological notes from my 2013 review:

Querina is the trademark for Florina, developed in France in the 1970s. It is a cross between Jonathan and an unnamed Co-op variety (PRI 612-1) whose family includes Red and Golden Delicious.

(For the hard-core apple nerd, it is [Red Delicious Starking × (Golden Delicious × [Rome Beauty x M. floribunda 821])] x Jonathan, although some sources give 612-1 as the pollen parent.)

There are some interesting comments about this apple appended to the older review.