Why are Japanese apples SO BIG?

42 comments

1. Fuji apples are boring

   I went to National Azabu, which is a supermarket in Azabu Juban, and they had granny smiths imported from new zealand and they tasted amazing.

2. I remember working at an apple orchid in NZ when I was a kid and packing (not picking, I was working in the packing section) the biggest most beautiful apples I’d ever seen. I wondered why I’d never seen apples so nice in the supermarket. I asked somebody I worked with and they said, these are all going to Japan. So, when I grew up, I shipped off to Japan also.

3. It’s because unlike foreign apples which take shortcuts and are therefore of lower quality, superior Japanese apples are folded over 1000 times.

4. For some time I was confused and thought what is OP going on about ?

5. I don’t *know* the reason, but I can easily see it a product design/marketing thing. Apples cost more in Japan than in the west, so they are grown and selected to be bigger and have less imperfections (at least superficially) to make the higher price feel justified.

6. They have so little taste, especially if you want to cook with them

7. Not sure about imported but I heard farm grown apples (and fruits) in Japan are grown with a lot of care. They prune off small ones and leave the bigger ones to absorb all the nutritions and grow big. Also pruning of leaves around there to make sure the apples receive full sunlight, and also put reflectors on the ground for the same reason.

8. Apple must be shape of hinomaru.

   Always.

9. I live in Aomori and literally just went apple picking this morning lol.

   Fruit farmers here are definitely going for quality over quantity of fruit. I think that applies to apples especially. Japanese consumers love a photogenic, extremely sweet apple, so they spend a lot of effort on pruning trees, caring for each apple, and even wrapping them individually in paper to help them ripen correctly. They’re kinda farmer-artisans in a way. The size is just one more way to make your apples impressive and beautiful.

10. https://preview.redd.it/09sab2pu4vzb1.png?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9ae3bae345109cb692a0a66f8fc9c257e2e580f5

    I know exactly how you feel. I love eating apples and would happily have 2-3 a day if I could, but unfortunately they are seen as a “treat” for desserts or gifts making them big and expensive almost all the time.

    That said, I recently found lovely bags of green apples for “cooking/jams” that are so much cheaper and smaller than super market sizes yet I just eat whole and they taste great. Out at a farmer’s market in Nagano though…

    You can also find New Zealand Granny Smiths in some supermakets, but unfortunately they are quite rare…

11. Because they willingly prune the tree in a way it will produces less fruits. The nutrients produced by the tree are divided among a smaller number of fruits making them bigger.

12. JA, aka farmer yakuza, has strict regulations on what they will accept. If the apples are not big and perfect they never make it to the store. Anything small and imperfect usually ends up being used for culinary purposes or juiced.

13. We don’t get granny smiths where I am, but I buy NZ Jazz apples (and another variety i can’t remember) whenever they’re in stock. I find most Japanese fruit trends bland…I miss the market gardens back home often 🤣 Japanese fruit tends to be huge, and the only flavour profile is “sweet”. Apples here are often so disappointing.

14. i have been buying granny smiths direct from a farm. They are huge, tart and crisp.

15. Fruits are sold at a higher price to consumers in Japan, which leads to them reporting bigger profit margins. This then calls for more money to be spent in improving flavour and appearance in order to drive up the sales.

16. If you are paying 200 Yen for an apple, it better be big right? Or something like that.

17. This is an ancient secret that’s been known to only a select few. 

18. Granny Smiths are the best!

    Also, the center of Japanese apples freaks me out so much that I can’t eat them anymore. The white stuff inside looks like mold.

19. The apples here are so good. Seriously?! Kind of scraping at the bottom of the barrel for things to complain about aren’t we?

20. One reason is the farmers will prune individual apple bunches and will leave just one apple bud on a branch so that apple will get more nutrients.

21. I miss honeycrisp apples 😭

    Is there a reason why apples here are so waxy? No matter how thoroughly I wash and scrub them, they still have a waxy taste.

22. Maybe unpopular opinion, but I find American apples to be vastly superior to Japanese apples.

23. Japan’s whole culture on fruit is Quality over Qunatity.

    It’s difficult to get cheap fruit here.

    With limited space fruit growers aim for the expensive high quality fruit markets rather than bulk

24. Living in Japan more than 10 years. Apple here still not my cup of tea. I like the apple is harder (crunchy?) and sour.

25. They don’t seem bigger to me than most of them in America. And we have Fuji there too.

26. Speaking of large fruit, I saw these monsters this morning and took a photo because I don’t even know what they are.

    https://preview.redd.it/8rq57f1ktvzb1.jpeg?width=1539&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1201f335a2a9b8e4618ef0e362ad9f65da9b2610

27. this also always bothers me… I can’t eat that much a big apple in one time. So have to struggle to search for smaller ones…. But now the cost 200 yen… so never mind…

28. Concious breeding decision by JA. Big and sweet are like what they aim for for basically every single fruit.

29. Apples here are done “japanese style”. They remove 2/3 of the fruit from each tree manually to encourage the plant to dump it’s energy into making bigger, better fruit.

30. Because they pay top dollar to import the best apples from other countries. And those other countries keep their own leftovers to sell domestically

31. More importantly has anyone found a soft apple? All these apples are too hard.

32. It’s because they’re Mt Fuji sized apples!

33. Overcompensation.

    In all seriousness, you trim the number of buds so the tree produces fewer larger fruit.

34. It’s kind of a maniac cultivation. I’m going to compare it to US. In the US, farmers just let the apples grow on their own so one tree would have as many as it could take and hold.

    In japan, farmers allow one tree to have only certain number of fruits by weeding out most of the fruits, so that remaining ones get the most possible amount of nutrients. They are cared for individually like each one is a golden baby. They are covered in a mesh bag so the bugs don’t reach them. They are harvested one by one by hand so the damage in minimal. They are not only just big but also expensive due to these treatments.

35. I mean… if you are going to pay like $4 for an apple, I’d rather it be bigger than average…

36. I live in Tokyo and found it odd that I haven’t seen Honeycrisp apples anywhere here given how popular and expensive they are in Canada and USA

37. Granny Smiths in the UK are universally the worst in terms of flavour, texture and skin! They’re also always the biggest in stock anywhere annoyingly.

38. They taste awful and are covered in polish too. I used to love apples

39. I always thought it was the fertile volcanic soil. Could be wrong though.

40. I’m from Washington State and I miss green, normal-sized apples sometimes lol. And being able to pick however many you want in an orchard and take them home for a few dollars. I’m also allergic to yellow and red varieties (i know it makes no sense) but green ones have always been fine.

41. Why are they so gross and mealy too?

    I’ve found I only like imported apples here.

42. I love apples, and have been enjoying the many varieties in Japan for years. I personally like Fuji very much. It is sweet, but I like that. Recently, I’ve fallen for Meigetsu apples. They are green with one red circle on the side. They are also sweet, but just amazing. I do like other varieties, even tart ones. The only apple I found I couldn’t handle is Akabae. They are a beautiful deep red color. Love the color. But they are a bit acidic for me.

    If you ever want to choose a good apple, especially Fuji, I’ve found that the more beautiful red it is, the more delicious it is. Even if it has a slight cut or something on it, if it’s a beautiful red color, it’ll be great.