Live Apple Tasting
When was the last time you stopped and tasted an apple the way you’d taste a fine wine, or a flavourful cheese? If you haven’t done an apple tasting, you are missing out.
Recently, I hosted a live apple tasting on Instagram sponsored by the Ontario Apple Growers Association guiding people through the varieties of apples we were tasting, including the history, discussing the tasting notes and facits to pay attention to. Then right into the 4 varieties I was tasting, having invited people to prepare and have the same varieties on hand so they could taste along.
I published the Apple Tasting in my new IGTV series Tastings With Lex, so you can watch and taste along anytime you want to, and I’ve embed the link below as well.
Apple Tasting sponsored by Ontario Apple Growers Association
I had a great group of people join in and participate as we tasted and discussed apples. And that’s pretty much exactly what you want from a tasting event. Good people talking about good flavours, learning a little something and sharing some laughs.
We tasted 4 apples – Ambrosia, Gala, McIntosh and Honeycrisp. We talked about their histories. Shared our favourite apple dishes and we even made some apple puns.
McIntosh Apples – discovered in 1811 in Dundlea Ontario – tart and tender 
Gala Apples – devleoped in 1934 in New Zealand – sweet & aromatic 
Honeycrisp Apples – developed in 1991 at the University of Minnesota – honey notes, very crisp and juicy 
Ambrosia Apples – discovered in the 1980s in BC – strong floral notes and low acid
Apple Tasting Event sponsored by Ontario Apple Growers
What a fun event to host, thanks Ontario Apple Growers for making it possible!
I hope that if you weren’t able to join me, that you will consider taking the time to do a tasting of your own (tips below), or watch the video above and taste along.
Holding your own Apple Tasting
When i started to pull together my materials for the tasting I was surprised at how few resources there were available for apple tastings. Often my searches took me down into white wine tastings and details around wines with apple notes. The other set of materials were things written for pre-schoolers. The next level of information was very dense agro-academic material. I was surprised. So, I thought it might be helpful to share some of what I found and give you some tools to do this yourself at home.
What you need
It’s fairly easy to setup for an apple tasting, in fact, it would be a perfect date or picnic activity.
What you need for an apple tasting:
Apples – enough for at least 1/4 of each variety for each person participating in the tasting. If you are just tasting raw apples, this is all you need. If you want to taste both raw and cooked apples to see the change in texture and flavour after the apple is cooked you’ll need a couple of extra things
What you need to do a raw and cooked tasting:
- baking pan
- parchment paper
- knife
- oven
Preheat your oven to 375°
To cook your apples, core them and place them on the parchment paper in the baking pan. The parchment paper may seem like overkill but it will help to reduce mess (and cleanup) and let you mark on the paper which apple is which. Trust me, you might not know after they come out of the oven.
Bake the apples in the middle rack for 45 minutes, and remove and let cool before your tasting.
Optional items that will make your tasting better, easier and more filling and fun
- a Knife
- a cutting board
- napkins
- cheese
- nuts
- baguette
- dips and drizzles that could include: honey, nutella, peanut butter, balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, sugars
The knife and cutting board are probably pretty obvious, but you can do the tasting by just biting into the apples. And if you have ever found a wild tree, chances are that’s what you’ve done. But this allows you to share easily and inspect the apple more thoroughly.
Along with the dips and drizzles, these additional flavours can help you identify different flavour aspects of the apples, and also you may find that a certain apple is too tart on it’s own, but perfect with a smear of brie or too sweet, but perfect with a little blue cheese.
The cheese and nuts are there to let you do some flavour pairing while you are doing your tasting.
The baguette will help clear your palate between apples. Since there are acids and sugars that linger when tasting, the bread will help clear that.
What to evaluate in an Apple Tasting
Like any tasting, you want to do more than just taste. You want to experience the thing you are tasting. Let your senses guide you by focusing on each sense, one at a time.
A lot of these elements are how you can differentiate one apple variety from another without a fruit sticker or label at the grocery store.
- Sight – shape, size, colour
- Feel – skin, heft, surface
- Smell – beyond just the apple-ness
- Taste – so many options
- Sound – the sound as you cut into or bite into the apple
Sight – what does the apple look like?
Look at the shape of the apple, does it have a round shape, or a heart shape? Does it have shoulders? Does it have little bumps at the stemen end that make it look like it’s standing up on little feet?
How big is the apple you are tasting? Is it small like a crabapple or huge like a wolf river?
Look at the skin. What colour is it? Red, yellow, crimson, green, brown? Does it have russet areas (I think of russet as rough skin)? Some apples that are not russets have russet at the stem or russet dots.
Does it have stripes or spotsI ? Does it have shade marks where the skin didn’t turn red?
Is it shiny or does it have a bloom that rubs off, or a matte that doesn’t rub off?
When you cut it open, what colour is the flesh? White, yellow, green-tinged? Or is it pink? Does it have shots of colour through the flesh?
Feel
How heavy is the apple? How dense does it feel? Does the flesh give when your fingers press in a little or is it firm or even hard?
Is the skin smooth, or does it have textures? Is it soft or rough?
When you cut it open is it crisp, firm, soft? What is the texture of the flesh of the apple? Dry, juicy?
Smell
Smell is a big part of taste, and the aromatics of an apple are heady. Sometimes it hard to differentiate smell from taste, but it’s worth taking a moment and trying. The esters and volatile oils in an apple are fascinating and can be heavily affected by how the apples are stored. Take a look at some of the terms below, and try and see which are flavours and which are aromas.
Sound
This is a combination of the sound of cutting into the apple, the sounds when you break a piece in half, and the sounds when you bite into a piece. Is crispness a feel or a sound? For me, probably a bit of both. How about juiciness? That certainly triggers sounds.
Taste
Here’s where things get interesting : taste. This is a tasting after all.
Tasting an apple focuses on 3 main elements: Sweet, Sour and Bitter.
- Sweet comes from the sugars in the apple and the volatile elements that you will pickup on while tasting – esters, terpenes, alcohols, and aldehydes.
- Sour comes from the acidity of the apple – malic and carboxylic acids.
- Bitter comes from the level of tannins or polyphenols.
it’s amazing how these 3 elements (and sub-elements) can produce such a wild variety of flavours and tastes.
Some descriptive terms you might want to have handy:
Floral, Honey, Grass, Fennel, Raspberry, Mellow, Sharp, Green, Aromatic, Scented, Perfumy, Ruddy, Hard, Juicy, Sour, Mealy, Mushy, Glossy, Crisp, Wet, Dry, Triangular, Round, Oblong, Perfumed, Speckled, Mammoth, Spherical, Firm, Soft, Delicate, Melon, Sweet, Tart, Bitter, Plump, Fragrant, Striped, Variegated, Purple, Strawberry, Yellow, Shiny, Orange, Anise, Blackcurrant, Banana, Woody, Cherry, Luscious, Baked, Fleshy, Wild, Withered, Waxen, Russet, Rosy, Red-cheeked, Speckled, Sugar, Nutty, Pineapple, Pear, Golden, Brown, White, Pink, Scarlet, Crimson, Succulent.
More resources
Ontario Apple Growers
The Ontario Apple Growers represents all apple growers across Ontario with 10 or more acres of apple across Ontario.
- Approx 200 growers
- 15,000 acres of apple trees
- Growing 15 commercial varieties
- Producing 300 million apples a year
- 77.8% of which are sold fresh
Apple Varieties Grown Commercially in Ontario – https://onapples.com/ontario-apple-varieties
Trying to Identify an Apple?
This is a great resource to indentify an apple based on a wildly large variety of features – http://www.applename.com/id.aspx
Great Apple Recipes from Ontario Bloggers
Some online recipes here: https://onapples.com/recipes
A great downloadable PDF of recipes here:
Some great apple recipes from Lex
A little Science behind Apple Tasting
We’re talking esters, alcohols, terpenes (they aren’t just for cannibis!)
Note: this post is part of my Ontario Apple Grower’s Association Ambassador sponsored series. For more information and disclosure on my relationship with the Ontario Apple Growers Association please take a second and read this post and my Disclosure statement
Highly entertaining and hugely informative.
Thanks! I’m glad you joined us at the tasting and liked the post too. Looking forward to you joining us for the next one as well.