It is apple season and while I have tried over 50 different variety of apples at this point in my fruit loving career, I still look forward to finding something new every season. On this particular day though, I was just looking for some small snacking apples to keep in my refrigerator and toss in my bag every afternoon on my way out.
As I was perusing the aisles at Trader Joes, I saw a nice bag of Jazz apples. Definitely a good choice. But then my eye caught the label on the bag next to it, which simply said “U.S. Extra Fancy” and also the ever enticing and clear description, “APPLES”. What the? I have come to expect this level of generalizing from most types of fruit, but apples? Even your average small town grocery store at least clarifies golden delicious and red delicious. Anything shouting about being Extra Fancy though, has my attention. Particularly apples. What had I just found? Would they be studded with diamonds? I had to know. Upon further inspection, I saw stickers on each apple inside indicating the SweeTango variety. I had heard about this apple, but hadn’t seen one yet. How exciting! The SweeTango was supposed to be the next Honey Crisp! Whatever that means. So I tossed them in my bag along with the Jazz apples (you really can’t have too many apples) and headed out.
Then they sat in my refrigerator for two days unnoticed as I kept reaching for the Jazz. This may partially be due to the fact that when I see anything named “Jazz”, I am compelled to do jazz hands on the spot. Don’t you? Or it could be because I felt the need to punish this apple for not proudly displaying it’s variety name right on the bag. Either way, it is odd for a new fruit I haven’t tried to be ignored for days. And so this morning I pulled one out and gave it a try. My conclusion? “Meh.” Let me know what you think. I’m still looking for diamonds…
SweeTango Apple
APPEARANCE Rating: 
Nice shiny red skin with yellow blush and the cutest little yellow freckles
AROMA Rating: 
Fresh grass with a very subtle sweetness
TEXTURE Rating:
Some crispy, some soft bites. Nice juice and good crunch. Has one of those taut, smooth skins that reminds me of a balloon pulled too tight.
TASTE Rating:
Nice and sweet with a hint of tart
OVERALL Overall Rating:
This is a good apple. Not great, not bad. Good. Very ho-hum middle of the road. If I had to guess, I would say these are likely excellent right off the tree. But in a bag labelled “Extra Fancy”? These just aren’t. Sorry.
| FRUIT Apple |
PEAK Fall |
PURCHASED Trader Joes |
| VARIETY SweeTango |
GROWN Unknown |
Noooo! I love sweet tango! It could be a distance thing- in MN the apples I get are organic and local with no refrigeration or wax. That makes a huge difference in taste. We’ve discussed before that honeycrisp apple taste varies as well depending on where it was grown. The same is probably true for sweet tango. So there.
@emi – There is only one solution. I need to get to MN pronto!
My hubby & I are fond of Ambrosia apples. You should look for them. Grown in BC, though, so I don’t know how easy they’d be to find in the US (or how well they’d travel).
Oh jena – I DO love the Ambrosia apple. We can get them pretty comfortably here in So Cal and they are a delight. Not sure why I haven’t gotten them up on the site yet. They are definitely in my top 3 apples right now (along with Green Dragon and Pink Lady).
You inspired me Jena. Posted about Ambrosia apples today. Yay! And Yum!