North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["EmailUser samurphy" <samurphy@isp.com>]

>Shirley wrote:
>
>"This is the first year that my Asian Pear has produced and it was a
>bumper crop!  Now I am trying to find a way to use them and to save
>the wonderful taste to enjoy throughout the winter."
>
>Interesting.  My Shinko and Korean Giant also cropped for the first
>time, but I have yet to discover where their "wonderful taste" could
>possibly be hiding.  In fact, I have been weighing the choices of
>keeping them for making some sort of cider or wine out of them in
>future (neither will be very good unless the fruit actually sweeten
>up eventually) or just topgrafting them to something fit to
>eat.  Any suggestions?
Donna,

Chojuro has nice flavor; it's my favorite Asian pear to date - and I
agree, Shinko & KG are mostly just juicy without a whole lot of
flavor.  Hosui was tastier than those two, but still not as good as
Chojuro.  Niitaka's got some nice sized pears this year, but they're
not exceptionally flavorful - but pretty and juicy.
Shinko is probably the heaviest producing Asian in my orchard
year-in/year out.
My friend Joe Real sent me a bottle of 20th Century pear wine a
couple of years back - nice, and sweet - but I'm not much of a wine
connoisseur; I liked his blueberry wine better.

Lucky

 

Sorry, Donna, that your Korean Giants are not good.  Mine are also Korean Giant and they are far better than any Asian pears purchased from the store.  I had to test them at several stages to make sure they were perfectly ripe.  It seems that after they begin to turn golden they have an unpleasant sweetness.  Mine were good right off the tree when picked at the proper time.  I wonder what can cause such a difference between individual trees of the same variety?  Lucky's suggestion of Chojuro is inticing.

Shirley