What color are these apples?

GOING FOR THE GOLD

Hint: These are not Granny Smith. ¶ 

They are Golden Delicious.

As Orange Pippin explains,

Fruit picked for supermarkets is often picked when still green, and then stored for months before sale.

That is not just an aesthetic shift:

In contrast, when allowed to ripen to a golden-green color on the tree the true flavour [of Golden Delicious] is revealed: exceptionally sweet and rich, almost like eating raw sugar cane.

 

Nom!

Why sell unripe fruit? It keeps better in storage, even if it isn't as good. (Picking early also gets the crop safely off the tree and away from hail, bugs, disease, and other hazards of nature.)

They're all like that

Supermarket apples of all kinds are regularly picked early, though some (like Golden) show it more, and suffer from it more, than others.

Popular red-blushed varieties develop sports selected because they show color earlier. These can be picked earlier without looking unripe (even though they are).

If you've noticed a drop-off in the quality of your favorite apple, that could be the reason: growers have optimized early picking over taste and crunch.

It certainly helped to do in Red Delicious.

Arguably, ripe fruit might fare worse in storage, come February. I don't know, except that I've probably never had a ripe Granny Smith.

Speaking of Granny, there is one lurking among the "golden" delicious in the photo above. Can you find her?

Orange Pippin again (the whole thing is worth a read):

Golden Delicious is also a versatile apple, and can be used both for dessert and cooking purposes, and it has an attractive appearance—which can indeed be golden if left to mature on the tree.

Granny Smith

Both photos taken on February 18.