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from
Wikipedia:
The apple are sweet, crunchy and juicy. They have a firm, but dense flesh
and a rich sweet flavour. Tasting panels in Europe have revealed that
consumers prefer the Jazz variety to both Braeburn and Gala apples. The Jazz
brand is owned and used by ENZA
for the new variety Scifresh.
The Jazz Apple is being grown in Southern New South Wales, and
is expected to produce a very small yield in 2000.
The Jazz Apple was meant to be introduced with a large media launch in
Sydney, Australia in April 2007, but
was significantly delayed and a new date has not been set. There were problems with PR firm Media
Monitors and their owner Sonia Rendigs with the Sydney launch, and new talent
was used. It's unclear when the
Jazz Apple will have their new launch date in Sydney.
In the UK, they are available in Marks and Spencer,
Somerfield, Tesco and Waitrose, and will soon be
grown in the UK too.
And from www.orangepippin.com/jazz.htm:
Jazz is a very modern apple variety,
developed in New Zealand in the 1980s. It is a cross between two other major
apple varieties - Braeburn and Gala. Not surprisingly it has a lot of "shelf
appeal", being a medium size, and a very attractive appearance. It is marketed
as a "bi-coloured" apple, because the strong red/marroon colour is broken up
by areas of green / yellow / orange. It tends to attract a premium price.
Jazz has a really excellent flavour, particularly if you like sweeter
apples. The butter-yellow flesh is juicy, crisp and dense. There is a
pronounced pear-drop sweetness, and very little acidity - a characteristic
that can lead to blandness in Gala, but Jazz always has a good flavour.
(We have been advised by Steve T of New Zealand that the red colour is
key to the unique Jazz flavour - poorly-coloured apples will taste like
Braeburns).
Jazz is grown in New Zealand, France, and Washington state
in the USA, with most commercial plantings only starting in 2000. Like a
number of modern varieties it is trade-marked, and was developed in
conjunction with a marketing agency - Enzafruit -
which controls planting and marketing internationally. "Jazz" is actually a trademarked brand name, the variety name is
Scifresh.
It tends to become available towards the end of the
season - so in northern Europe it comes into shops in November/December.
Because it is so new supplies tend to be limited, but this is supposedly a
very long-keeping variety and therefore likely to be popular with producers.
Jazz matures very late and has very dense hard flesh which benefits from
softening slightly in storage. It will be interesting to see if the juicy
flavour is retained in storage.
Jazz is not yet available from UK
orchards but trees have been planted in Kent and should come into production
in a few years. The trademark restrictions mean you are unlikely to find this
tree available from fruit tree nurseries.
In summary, Jazz shows lots
of promise as a future supermarket apple variety and hopefully will become
widely available. The appearance and keeping qualities are very good, and it
has by far the best flavour of all the mainstream supermarket apple varieties
- indeed it is the only supermarket apple variety which makes it into our Top 10
Apple Varieties, where it comes in at a very respectable 5th
place.
I found a new apple at the grocery store this
week. Jazz. It's about the size, color and shape of a Winesap and
tastes remarkably like it.
Do you know anything about this "new"
variety. Or could it be a marketing repackage with a jazzy name? It
is too early for Winesap, but perhaps this might be a variant.
Doreen Howard
The Apple Lover in Zone 4b, IL-WI
Border
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