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Notes -
Do you prefer apples or oranges? ;-)
IMO, apples taste slightly better, but oranges obviously are far more convenient to eat if you don't have access to a knife (e. g., at work).
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Depends on where you are a bit right? Anything grown to store and ship vs. taste good off the tree naturally entails compromises and some varieties store and ship better than others.
Im from (and currently live in) the northeast US, and particularly in upstate NY, apples are fantastic. I can completely refuse to buy CA, OR, or WA apples and not really suffer for it. Local apples here are much fresher, and we have access to varieties that don’t ship well or are harder to grow or that are lower yield. On our little homestead, we have Macintosh, Macoun, and Northern Spy apple trees. Macouns are great eating apples but I understand they deteriorate more easily than some. Someone said below that honey crisps are overrated. I’d agree, with the caveat that they don’t travel or store well, so they’re overpriced and can be disappointing unless you pick one fresh. There’s a push to create a hybrid that helps - evercrisp for example.
OTOH my wife is from LA and she can’t fathom why anyone would bother to eat most of the oranges we can get here. Just recently I got some shit from her for trying to juice navel oranges for mimosas on New Year’s Day til I reminded her that Valencia or whatever juice orange she prefers aren’t available in January here. We have had good luck with Cara Caras when they’re in season, but when we do to CA for holidays the variety and quality really do make a noticeable difference. But I’m not an orange connoisseur and can’t speak to the comparison of, say, FL vs CA oranges.
I think some of the preferences below follow from here.
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